Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

Impr
ov
e Y
our Englis
h: Englis
h in Ev
er
yda
y Life
26
there and he had a lot to say about it. Not to me because 
the war estranged a lot of families and, uh, and, uh, I 
didn’t really know I had a grandfather until I was twenty. 
And-and so I was about his age when he went. And then 
I met him and then
[
we talked about it, so 
]
.
INTERVIEWER:
Why did it estrange families?
MAN:
Because people were changed by it, as they are today 
in-in wars, all over the world. War changes you. War, uh, 
alters your understanding, um, with the suff ering, the 
loss, the, uh, the stress. Human relationships alter, people 
are changed by it, and I’m only speaking in-in a general 
way. I don’t really know—I mean, relationships break up, 
OK, as well, but there was such a lot of-of people having 
diffi
culties, a lot of young people. And there is a picture I 
have of my grandfather and he’s there, a very young man 
from a young country, and he’s dressed in his new uni-
form and it’s 1915 and he’s just about to be thrown into 
the most dreadful, uh, of all experiences and have his 
friends die and have his, in-in-in terrible circumstances, 
[
so 
]
.
INTERVIEWER:
Was it the trauma of that that took a long 
time for him to discuss it with you?
MAN:
Uh, no, no, I don’t think so. Um, some people talk 
about their war experiences and some do not. Um, I 
think, I think most do not. But that wasn’t the reason. 
It was because, it was a small family reason that he had 
forged another life and he had another family. And so it 
wasn’t, uh, anyway, he had another life. And so I-I really 
didn’t know much about him until later. I knew my-my 
relatives on-on my other side, on my mother’s side of the 
family, who-who’d fought at Gallipoli, too, but as I said, 
it was such a common thing, there were so many, uh, so 
many sent off to fi ght in that.

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