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My uncle... their hero
ISN'T it funny how the past catches up with us at the most unexpected moments?
Sometimes things we haven't thought about for years are suddenly there, in our face. And usually caused by the daftest things.
Last week I was researching the Gurkhas on the net and there was a link to the Chindits, some sort of special forces outfit that fought in Burma during the Second World War. It rang a vague bell from when I was a kid.
So I clicked on it. Then I spotted one word that rang an even louder bell. It was "Kitna."
Where had I heard that before?
Then I remembered. Kitna. Kitna Price. Also known as Uncle Stan.
He died years ago. In the early 80s, I think. I remember because I was going to ask him to give me away at my wedding and then it was too late.
My mother was devastated. He was her kid brother and she adored him. He was the one who got away, who left the mills and ran off to join up.
And the boy did good.
He became the youngest regimental sergeant major in the British Army and shot up through the ranks. By the time I was old enough to understand these things, he was a lieutenant colonel.
But to me, he was Uncle Stan. I didn't see him often but he was very dapper with a dauntingly glamorous wife and a beautiful daughter.
He was warm, funny, generous – and prone to gentle teasing. He had the most outrageous waxed handlebar moustache and I thought he was brilliant, a real pussycat.
So it was a bit of a shock to find a website describing him as a legend in his own lifetime, a hero and a role model.
It was even weirder to read about grown soldiers being so terrified of the Dunkirk veteran that they ran away and cowered in a toilet when he approached.
He was also, it seems, a little eccentric. How else do you describe a man who, while stationed in India, put a bicycle under arrest in the guardroom for moving on parade because it fell over. Or who gave a cloud a rollicking for daring to overshadow his parade ground.
Or who put an entire company in the guardroom for being scruffy on parade. There is even a rumour that he put himself on a charge when he looked in the guardroom mirror and told himself he was scruffy and a disgrace to his regiment.
Frankly. I don't believe that one. But the rest... well, perhaps.
It did, however, clear up his nickname. Kitna is the Urdu for "price" as in Stanley Price. Family mystery solved.
Uncle Stan went on to great things and, when he retired, was hired by the Sultan of Oman to reorganise his army. He died soon after.
But one thing is clear from the website – just how much he was respected by his men.
And that's worth knowing, at any price.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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