A poignant day as we mark the anniversary of D-Day and the pictures from Normandy were very moving. I was sent the following poem today.

Queuing for an Ice Cream

although he didn’t smoke grandad never went anywhere without the old tobacco tin in his pocket one day me and my brother asked him what he kept in it                      some sand, grandad said

why do you keep some sand in a tobacco tin, we asked                                              where else would I keep it, he said

but why keep sand at all we asked  it’s special sand, grandad said it’s come all the way from France

we peered into his tin and stared  for a while      French sand didn’t look very special, it looked like ordinary sand to us

why’s it so special, we asked                                                                                             each grain represents an old friend of mine, he said

grandad must of have had a lot of friends, we thought                                                        did you go to the beach with them when you were a boy, we asked

yes, something like that, grandad said, snapping the lit shut,                                             asking the man for three 99s, two with red sauce

by Brian Bilston