Gunner Flann

Welcome to Gunner Flann – A National Service Memoir

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Creating the National Service Memoir Long ago

When John Flann began his National Service in 1949, was assigned to the Royal Artillery and posted to Hong Kong, the furthest thing from his mind was writing a book, a National Service memoir. Back then writing a book meant producing a manuscript for a publishing house to convert to a paper product offered in bookstores. Nor could he dream of the day that self-publishing at little or no cost would become possible through the advent of the Internet and simple content management systems like WordPress. But he could be be a faithful son, keeping his father – for his mother had died in 1946 when he was sixteen – informed of his life by dutifully writing letters home. And he did so, on average one a week for the two years of National Service.

Rediscovering the National Service Letters

His father, Sionna died in 1966, and when  he along with his sisters, settled his father’s estate  the letters sent so long ago returned to him, neatly kept in order, obviously treasured. Retirement in the United States, afforded some time to review and reacquaint John Flann with a significant part of his life, National Service. Convinced that the story of personal development within the history of service in the British Commonwealth’s furthest outpost Hong Kong would have interest to others, He set about converting these personal letters full of news into an orderly account for his family, his two sons, and posterity.

Genesis of Gunner Flann

After some early resistance, framed in the classical English refrain that time spent on a computer indoors was wasted when you could be outside breathing good, clean air and enjoying the sunshine, John Flann started to use a computer and the Internet at the ripe old age of 72. By 82, he had mastered publishing through WordPress, and worked on a site devoted to his life long love, model railways, Hintock Branch. Stretching out from modeling, he made the intellectual and emotional transition to being comfortable writing and publishing something more personal about his life, his time of National Service, and Gunner Flann was born. Here is hoping you enjoy reading it half as much as he enjoyed creating it.

How to Write a Memoir: Creative Devices

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In thinking about the personal account of my National Service , and how to tell that story in way that might interest readers, I wanted to find a way to present it beyond retelling a linear path over time. All stories have a beginning, middle and end, but a story can bore the reader or compel them to move on to the next section in eager anticipation. While I am not suggesting, my contribution reads like the latest novel that is a top seller, I wanted to specifically share a device that I think helps my tale. Before telling you about it, I would like to show it to you.

Gunner Flann in the beginning and at the end of his National Service in the Royal Artillery.

Before and After National Service in the Royal Artillery.

These two pictures helped me think about how I wanted to tell my story. Simply looking at them drove home to me how I had changed in the two years of my National Service, in the Royal Artillery. In this image where the before photograph and the after photograph are part of the same image next to each other, I cannot escape the sense of youth and expectancy in the beginning, nor can I fail to see the confident young man I had become two years later.

It struck me that these pictures could serve literal bookends to my story. These pictures feature in my Foreword and my End. My job became not to relate in some hum drum fashion everything that happened between over a period of time as if I was cataloging stationery, but to come to grips with how I changed and why and try to explain that within the context of my National Service. I would like to think that I have been successful, but of course others will be the judge of that, just like reviewers provide an opinion on a book or film.

But regardless of whether you think I have been successful or not, I would counsel developing your own device to tell your story if you are considering a personal memoir, particularly one about National Service.

The Royal Artillery Band Woolwich – Moving

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In chapter 4 that covered my time in transition out of the UK to Hong Kong through the Depot at Woolwich, I described the dual nature of the place as being home to ceremonial troops and a permanent staff whose job it was to dispatch troops all over the world. A big part of that ceremony was the Royal Artillery Band Woolwich. After 250 years, the band is moving to a new home.

This article from the Royal Borough of Greenwich states:

The Royal Artillery Band are leaving Woolwich after 250 years of links with the borough.

The Royal Artillery Band will be marching out of their barracks in Woolwich for the last time on Sunday 9 February, ending an association with the town of more than 250 years.

As part of the Ministry of Defence restructuring, the band is moving to Tidworth in Wiltshire in April.

I must admit, it makes me wonder about  how ceremony at the Woolwich depot will go now.

Interactive Memoirs – The Railway Station at Fanling

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When I started this National Service memoir, my model was a book, something static that is written then read. One of my joys in discovering web publishing is the interactive nature of it all.

Chapter 7 – Lo Wu, New Territories started by describing our arrival at Hong Kong and transfer to Whitfield Barracks, followed next day by a train journey from Kowloon to Fanling, the end of the line in Hong Kong.  A commentator was able to correct the record as he traveled on the same voyage as me, and has a distinct memory of marshaling there at the docks and proceeding to Lo Wu directly from the ship. This in turn prompted me to review my historical records, photographs and journal entries again. To my delight I found the photograph below of us on our second day in Hong Kong having arrived from Kowloon at Fanling:

Blog - 15th Battery at Fan Ling PSE & Chapter 7 CorrectionAwaiting transportation to Lo Wu after disembarking in Fanling are likely members of 98th Squad. Sitting to the left of the “Fanling” sign are probably Jim Dallaway and Frank Beames. On the right of the sign, standing and smoking is likely Bombardier S.

My hope is that I will have  a chance to repeat this type of post. While no one likes to make a mistake, getting the record of our time in the National Service correct is important, and the process allows one to better link other events together, and revisit the records to identify additional pictures. All part of the fun of a memoir on the web.

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