On Remembrance Day

Throughout history there has been a strong connection between the drinking of alcohol and war.

Think of Alexander the Great toasting to victory before toppling empires, or Viking berserkers fuelled up on mead doing unspeakable things to poor Saxon monks. Indeed, anyone who has been lucky enough to drink some of Nelson’s nectar like Marsala that he championed, or remember from their school days the fearsome grog ration of rum that sailors within the Royal Navy were allotted, knows that often alcohol and warfare mixed readily. 

Perhaps more poignant are the stories of young soldiers in the First War desperately falling upon rough French vintages in breaks between being sent up the lines and into the trenches to, in far too many instances, meet their maker. The fascinating story of how the Nazis tried to strip France, locust-like, of all her finest wines and the canny winemakers who hid their best wine behind false walls in cellars, or passed off table wine as Premier crus, has passed into history as a small symbol of resistance. 

One story on this Remembrance Day brings to mind the redemptive or restorative quality of wine. Dennis Pearl, a prisoner of war held by the Japanese, returning from having worked on the Burma railway and internment at Changhi, came back to Britain weighing five and a half stone. He had been a strapping Cambridge football Blue of 13 stone and a bit and all muscle. He was told in no uncertain terms that he would die if he remained in heavily rationed post war Britain and was sent to Belgium, where a doctor promptly prescribed him a pint of ice cream and a bottle of Burgundy a day. Upon recovery he stated, only slightly playfully, that medicine had never tasted better.

Lest We Forget.