My father, George Rusby Stead Noble, was shot in the battle of the Somme in 1916 and taken for dead. Along with so many, his body would have been loaded on a truck and taken to be buried. So many perished on that day, July 1st 1916. By the end of the day he was to be one of 60,000 British casualties. 

As with many who fell in the carnage of that battle, George was found to be alive. Perhaps someone noticed him breathe as they lifted his body from the truck, or perhaps he moved or moaned.  Had he not done so, no doubt he would have been lost.  

Life is not the absence of death. Death is part of the cycle of life.  It is part of life’s process of renewal.  If my father had succumbed to that bullet in 1916, then  I would not be. On such a sle...

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