Australia Since leaving the Navy in 1956 Claude Choules, now aged 109, has refused to march in Anzac Day parades in his adopted home of Australia and has become increasingly pacifist. Daphne Edinger, his daughter, said that her father did not believe in war and did not want to celebrate the anniversary of the end of the First World War on Nov 11, 1918. The family would not be marking the day either, Mrs Edinger, 82, said. "If he wants to forget, we're quite happy to forget it as well," she told the Daily Telegraph. Mr Choules, who lives in a nursing home in Western Australia, is too frail to walk and has lost his sight and hearing. His health has deteriorated over the last year and Mrs Edinger said that her father was now "not well at all". In exclusive interviews with the Daily Telegraph, his children said that they wanted Mr Choules to be remembered as a dedicated seaman, a "sensitive, understanding" family man and, despite 41 years of service in the armed forces, a pacifist who strongly opposed war. "He used to say that while he was serving in the war he was trained to hate the enemy, but later he really grew to understand that they were just young blokes who were the same as him," Adrian Choules, 75, said . "He said wars were planned by old men and fought by young men and that they were a stupid waste of time and energy. "As he got older he became more and more anti-war." After the death of Harry Patch in 2009, Mr Choules became the only known surviving British combatant in the First World War and the only witness to the surrender of the German fleet in 1918 and the scuttling of the their ships at Scapa Flow. Born in 1901 in Wyre Piddle, Worcestershire, he is also the only man left in the world who saw active service in both World Wars and, after emigrating to Perth in 1926, is now believed to be Australia's oldest man. Mr Choules spends most of his time in bed in a bright room on the first floor of a neat, modern nursing home in Perth's southern suburbs. When the Daily Telegraph visited he was sleeping soundly, his pale skin surprisingly wrinkle-free and his head still covered in a shock of white hair. Mrs Edinger, who visits him weekly, planted a kiss on his forehead and whispered in his ear, "Dad, it's me, Daf," but he slept peacefully on. Staff at the Gracewood, which is surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees and sits on the breezy banks of the Swan River, said that their most famous resident sleeps a lot but also has better days when he gets up for lunch in the communal dining room and chats with other elderly residents. Mr Choules's carers described him as "a thorough gentleman" and seemed to adore him. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. Several weeks ago, while he was being dressed by three nurses, Mr Choules looked up at them and simply said: "I love you, you're wonderful people." On the wall over his bed hang a framed black and white photograph of his beloved wife Ethel, who died in 2003 aged 98, and a selection of colourful crayon drawings by some of his 23 great-grandchildren. Propped up on his bedside table is a photograph of his younger self in Navy uniform, taken half a lifetime ago, his calm, confident face proudly smiling out at the camera. A demolition expert during the Second World War, Mr Choules was entrusted with giving the signal to sink the local fleet if the Japanese entered Fremantle Harbour. Mr Choules, who was still walking and swimming daily at age 100 and only moved into a nursing home aged 105, is no longer as active as he once was. Mrs Edinger believes that her father is on "a downward spiral". But Adrian Choules said that although he had lost his sight and was almost deaf, Mr Choules still remembered the sea shanties that he learned aboard British and Australian naval ships during four decades of service. "My wife knows all of the sea shanties and every now and then when we visit him she will sing the sea shanties to him and he joins in," Adrian Choules said. "He still remembers all the words, sometimes we have to close the door because he sings so loudly, but the staff don't mind, they love to hear him singing." Despite having been as smoker and having enjoyed a tot of rum in his youth, Mr Choules has never suffered from cancer, heart disease or dementia, and is on no medication. He has joked in the past that his secret to long life was to "keep breathing" but in more sombre moments will attribute his longevity to having a close and happy family. His children believe that he has also been blessed with extremely hardy genes and a good, active life. "Two years ago, I went to see him and he was sleeping so I tried to wake him up but I couldn't," Adrian Choules, 75, said. "I thought he must have died. So I felt for his pulse and there it was pounding away, boom, boom, boom. I felt it would go on and on forever."Last British veteran of WW1 refuses to mark Remembrance Day
The last surviving British veteran of the First World War will not mark Remembrance Day today because he wants to forget the horrors of war, his family has said.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
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