大象传媒

This is just a short story about my dad, Lance Corporal Humphrey Corten, Royal Engineers (Sappers).
He passed away in December 1997. We had a slightly restrained relationship. He was a good dad in providing everything that a familyman did in those years after the war, but in the affection department he was a little cool.
My mother, Alicia, more than made up for that. She passed away in 1988, and to be honest, my dad died that day too.
He struggled on being quite independent living on his own, spending time with us when he felt up to it.
This leads me to reason for this story; My dad never ever went into great detail about 'his war', it was only when I had his medals mounted after he died that the man who did the job told me exactly what my dad had gone through.
His medals speak for themselves; The Burma Star, The Africa Star, The 1939-1945 Star, The Defence Medal and The India Medal.
I knew that he was a Chindit because he was very proud of that, and also the contribution of the Ghurka soldiers in Burma, who, in his own words "were the reason he made it through those years in the jungle".
It is eight years since he died and every time remembrance ceremonies come up I think of him more than at any other time, which is usually every day.
My dad, Humphrey Corten, was a real hero for real, I wish he had told me more. But as the man who mounted his medals said, it was the norm not to talk about it. It was a very painful time for them, and after reading about it and seeing what went through, courtesy of the many films and reports of the past months, I can understand why.
God bless my dad, Humphrey Corten.
Nigel Corten (son)

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