James Fairfax (1922 - 1945) [An Average Man]

He lived a quiet and a tidy life and that was all that could be said about him.
He came and went to work, he liked to bowl and dress in vogue.
His name was never splashed on hoardings, his neighbours said he seemed a pleasant man
So when the letter from the War Office landed, it interrupted a routine plan.

At school he'd been a straight C's pupil, average, unnoticed and a friend to few,
Well read, but mainly fiction, a watcher of the football on a Saturday Afternoon.

He never went the big store markets, preferred the service at the corner shop.
Had his hair cut every fortnight, liked eating chicken and a nice lamb chop.

So unobtrusive, so invisible, he'd always feared to change
Stuck to the sensible proper conduct and stayed well out of range.
The call to arms was quite disconcerting, unnerving and a bolt from the blue.
For once he sat and thought about a future, with no one to remember him, when he was through.

A little plan had come to him, like a soft whisper on a soothing breeze
So he journeyed to his roots in the Scottish Highlands and he stood by the lonely lake
With a cutting wrapped in clean newspaper, he dug foundations for the little seed,
Smoothed the soil between his trembling fingers and planted in the earth his family's tree

From the girl they'd branded a witch, down the long ages it grew
Each leaf revealing special stories, each branch started out anew.
Each twist of the unfurling curling bark, each notch on the twisted frame.
It called to James... How it called to James...

"Remember me, for I was once alive..."
James Fairfax fell in the last battle of the war in 1945