The Black Sheep
I think there comes a time in every man's life when he must face up to the past. A time when he must confront his darkest secrets, secrets he had hoped would never become public knowledge. Today I am that man and I must share with you, my loyal readers, the Creedon family secret. This week I received a telegram from the British Prime Ministers Office, nothing special about that I hear you say, and you'd be right for Tony is in regular contact with me to get my views on Britain's foreign policy. However this letter was different, it was from a junior vice secretary in charge of military affairs. Well to quote the song, my blood ran cold. What I am about to relate now hasn't been spoken aloud for nearly eighty years. You see my great grand uncle Wilf Creedon not only fought in the Great War but was shot at dawn .
Wilfred Alfred Creedon was born in a bog just outside Terminfeckum in the midlands in 1890. At the age of three he moved to England to seek his fortune but quickly fell in with the wrong crowd and found himself well known to the local beek for several minor crimes. However by 1916 times had changed and the body count on the Western front grew inversely portportionatly to the number of people volunteering for active duty. So when Wilf came before the magistrate for being drunk whilst in charge of a penny farthing he was given the choice of three years in the clink or a tour of duty. Well, still being intoxicated he chose the latter.
Wilf rose quickly to the rank of Colonel in the army (a rank he assumed when he shot his commanding officer in the back as he "went over the top") and held that position through out the war (largely through blackmail and intimidation). The Fake Colonel, as he later became known, spent the entire war in one French doss house or another enjoying the trappings that his position afforded him. However his luck ran out when he was found in the bed of a French Generals wife, with the wife and her daughter. Challenged to a duel Wilf quickly fled the scene only to find a courts martial awaiting him upon his return to the front. On April 4, 1917 Colonel Wilf Creedon was found guilty of "conduct unbecoming an officer, larceny, public nudity, public urination, unlawful carnal knowledge of a geriatric and most damning of all, collusion with an enemy officer". He was shot at dawn................
So you can imagine my delight when I opened the letter to find that he's been pardoned and I am to receive his army pension, backdated with interest and inflation added......Huzzah!!!
Here's to you Wilf you drunken, philandering ne'er do well.
World War One, Shot At Dawn Ireland, James Dutton Is Dead, Genthar, Colonel Creedon
Wilfred Alfred Creedon was born in a bog just outside Terminfeckum in the midlands in 1890. At the age of three he moved to England to seek his fortune but quickly fell in with the wrong crowd and found himself well known to the local beek for several minor crimes. However by 1916 times had changed and the body count on the Western front grew inversely portportionatly to the number of people volunteering for active duty. So when Wilf came before the magistrate for being drunk whilst in charge of a penny farthing he was given the choice of three years in the clink or a tour of duty. Well, still being intoxicated he chose the latter.
Wilf rose quickly to the rank of Colonel in the army (a rank he assumed when he shot his commanding officer in the back as he "went over the top") and held that position through out the war (largely through blackmail and intimidation). The Fake Colonel, as he later became known, spent the entire war in one French doss house or another enjoying the trappings that his position afforded him. However his luck ran out when he was found in the bed of a French Generals wife, with the wife and her daughter. Challenged to a duel Wilf quickly fled the scene only to find a courts martial awaiting him upon his return to the front. On April 4, 1917 Colonel Wilf Creedon was found guilty of "conduct unbecoming an officer, larceny, public nudity, public urination, unlawful carnal knowledge of a geriatric and most damning of all, collusion with an enemy officer". He was shot at dawn................
So you can imagine my delight when I opened the letter to find that he's been pardoned and I am to receive his army pension, backdated with interest and inflation added......Huzzah!!!
Here's to you Wilf you drunken, philandering ne'er do well.
World War One, Shot At Dawn Ireland, James Dutton Is Dead, Genthar, Colonel Creedon