Mumsnet users share the things they’re grateful to the First World War generation for with The Royal British Legion

[JustineBMumsnet]

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In light of the 100 year anniversary of the end of WW1, The Royal British Legion would like to hear about the ways you’re grateful for those who served, sacrificed and changed our world.

Do you have an appreciation for the incredible women who helped change women’s role in society, leading many more women to work in jobs outside the home? Are you grateful for the medical advances that were made out of necessity that benefit so many today, like plastic surgery and blood banks? Or perhaps you’re grateful for product innovation like the wristwatch, teabags or sanitary towels? Maybe you’d like to thank the children who took on extra responsibilities like helping MI5, even though it meant they grew up too fast?

If you’d like to find out more about the contributions made 100 years ago, please click here.

See what Mumsnet Co-Founder Justine Roberts is thankful for below:

If you have any family stories or photos that make you feel grateful for your ancestors of 100 years ago, please feel free to share these below.

All who post below will be entered into a Mumsnet prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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Grateful for their bravery and selflessness, I don't think it would be the same sentiment today

I'm grateful that the WRNS were formed in 1917 during the First World War, where Wrens like nineteen-year-old Josephine Carr from Cork gave their lives (becoming the first Wren to die on active service when her ship the RMS Leinster was torpedoed). By the end of the war the WRNS had 5,500 members - many years later I joined the WRNS in peacetime, but will never forget those that gave their today for our tomorrow.

I am grateful for the sacrifices they made so that we have the opportunity to live our lives today appreciating what peace means.

I always tear up, when I think of how very hard life must have been, families losing their mum - women finding inner strengths and talents to survive and how communities banded together.
I see older men at the remembrance services and think beyond those faded rheumy eyes what have they seen, their gnarled twisted fingers what have they touched? How very hard it must be to grow old when friends didn’t even make it through youth.
And I thank them that I have today because they fought for it.

I see older men at the remembrance services and think beyond those faded rheumy eyes what have they seen, their gnarled twisted fingers what have they touched

Nothing to do with WW1 because they wouldn't have been alive then.

I don't care. I'm glad most people responded to this thread honest

Ignorance caused WW1.

im grateful for all the sacrifices that were made for everyone today.
lest we forget

I hope the futility of war will be forever remembered and thank the war poets - there are so many - Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Vera Brittain and others for expressing this so powerfully

I’m grateful that future generations will now be less willing to go to war, I honestly believe future generations would rebel en masse against conscription.

I'm grateful for our freedom, things would have been so different without our ancestors fighting for us.

Our freedom and a future for all of the future generations to come.

We wouldn’t be here today without them. Those courageous, brave people enabled us to have the freedom we take for granted

Grateful for the nurses who looked after soldiers with terrible injuries in make shift conditions. Dealing with death everyday in a compassionate manner.

Im grateful for the freedom we have today, the sacrifice they gave so that we can live our lives with quality.

I’m grateful for their bravery and the time they sacrificed away from their loved ones. They were heros.

I'm grateful to everyone who sacrificed their own lives in any way for our benefit whether that was actually going to war or staying behind to keep everything going and deal with the personal losses involved.

I am grateful for absolutley everyone involved, the complete selflessness is absolutley amazing and makes me wonder would it be the same now. I would love to thank each and every person and animal involved, it makes me truly grateful to be a part of Britain and I cannot imagine what it must have been like. Its impossible to be grateful to just one person or one group of people, because each and every one of them are truly outstanding!

The bravery shown by all, it hard to identify a specific thing when everybody did there bit.

I am so grateful for those that risked and gave their lives and peace of mind for future generations, without hesitation.

I'm grateful that despite the death and destruction there came great art and beautiful poetry reminding us that there many facets to life

For our freedom, and their sacrifices, courage and belief in their fight for doing the right thing.

I am grateful for the way of life, freedom, pride, and history we have have for the 'few' who gave so much for the 'many', I still weep when I see the proud war veterans wearing their medals and poppies with pride.

'If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est'

I am grateful for the legacy of those who did not survive, as well as those who did, reading Wilfred Owen's graphic war poems, that never age, and still shock, that we are aware of the suffering that the'few' gave for us, so our freedom, that we take for granted, is not ever forgotten.

So many things to be grateful and thankful for, the main 2 for me are freedom of speech/expression and the women’s right to vote.
To those who gave their lives for us to enjoy ours, thank you xx

I am grateful for the bravery and sacrifices of all families involved in the war, most against their will. I am glad that women had the opportunity to prove that they had the same aptitudes as men and for advances in plastic surgery which continue to help across the world.

I am grateful for the Royal British Legion, and what it stands for, looking after our war heroes, so we should never forget, and when I look at the rows and rows of war graves, I am grateful that they are looked after, and stand for the sacrifice given by men and women we will never see, who gave the ultimate price for people then would never meet. ,