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~â€" _ Opinion I called him Dadcu (Dickee), Welsh for grandfather. Everyone called him Dadcu, his nieces and nephews, as well as grandâ€" children and greatâ€"grandchildren. It was in the village of Heolgerrig, within the former coalâ€"mining and steelmaking town of Merthyr Tydfil, that my greatâ€" grandfather lived. It is a closeâ€"knit com:â€" munity, a place where everyone knows everyone else‘s business, and almost everyâ€" body likes it that way, thank you very much But I also saw the grimy towns and cities that house the people of Wales. Behind the cute and picturesque facade tourists see is a nation of people who have suffered a lower standard of living than their English neighbors for centuries. His name was Christopher Heggie and he was my greatâ€"grandfather. It was the summer of 1986, and as a teenager I had returned alone to my homeland of Wales, as many immigrants have done, to find my "roots." I travelled through much of the land, discovering the scenes that inspired Dylan Thomas to write such beautiful poetry. I found a tiny town called Crickhowell, a town with a 13th century bridge crossing a rocky trout stream and mists rising everyâ€" where. I was in the land of King Arthur‘s magician Merlin. Never forget the evils of the ‘Great‘ He was 82 that summer, and his white, War was one thing he wanted to talk about. Dadcu had served as a stretcher bearer in the Great War of 1914â€"1918. Now that was the worst job going. You climbed out of the trenches to bring back dead and injured soldiers after they were shot or gassed. The other side still kept firing. white hair was thinning. But his blue eyes were piercing, a sign of the still perfectly clear mind underneath. Dadcu‘s voice was still firm, though his body had started to run down since he fell in the bathtub two Tsp wl;:" ly 1 the old spent days eagerly listening to o man recount his life. Not in a rambling fashion; no, he had a point to make. I was his eldest greatâ€"grandchild, and of the branch of the family that had escaped the poverty that is life in Wales by moving to Canada. We dug potatoes together as we talked. I brought in coal from the shed in the backyard, while he built a fire. For days we talked, and they were days I‘ll never forget. City Seen lan Kirkby _Jan Gareth, that war was wrong. It didn‘t mean anything. People died for nothing. We were told we were fighting for King and country. We weren‘t. It wasn‘t like the next war, where we fought against For all his life, Dadcu had carried that with him â€" being part of a war that history would one da;nflbel nothing but a trade conflict. The First World War was about greed. But men in the trenches, Germans He was the only one of the stretcher bearers he had trained with who survived the war. And he had his close calls, and the shrapnel wounds to prove it. But it wasn‘t his heroism that was on Dadcu‘s mind. It was the lessons of that war, lessons he wanted to pass on. I can still see him, sitting at the table in the tiny kitchen in his row house that seemed r‘}gt out of "How Green is My Valley," fire smouldered in the backâ€" ground, and a kettle was kept boiling on the ancient gas stove for an endless stream of“cup-a." lIl.'b:dcu. was fidgetting, something he did when preparing to pass on something unpleasant. Finally, he broke the silence. "Ian Gareth," he said in his singâ€"song Welsh accent. Dadcu always called me that. He could never say Ian (a Scottish name) without adding the Welsh middle t NOE fambantr faart e d It‘s my most treasured possession. Everyâ€" time I see it, I think of Dadcu. And every Remembrance Day I buy a poppy in his honor and think of our talks. It was ing Dadcu never forgot. And it “l'omothmg something that led to a peace movement in Britain that so blinded the country to the evils of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco that Fascism almost took over the world. But Dadcu had a plea. I was a member of the first generation to be born under the threat of a nuclear holocaust. I was to never forget the evils of the Great War, he said. The world is too important for citizens to allow themselves to be blinded by the fools who will trade away lives for money. His voice cracked as he talked about the horrors he had seen in the First World War. "And what about a nuclear war, Ian Gareth?" Dadcu paused, and reached into his vest to pull out his pocket watch. "I bought this at the beginning of the war," he said. "I‘ve kept it running all this time. Please, I want yo'u’to have it now, to remember me by." and Empire alike, men like Dadcu, sa MMMf fi bys yud: gf“:fitory,nthlto:k':mldymmmmvm sums in trade after the war, and huge profits selling military goods during the Cl niine sls meaueit o regeien n mcn on «=»