The Long Journey Home — Alan Vaughan

The creeping shadow of the Great War and its bloody aftermath was yet to come as little Tom Kealey played happily in the fields and hop gardens around his new home. Soon the dark clouds of war gathered as a line of men marched out of the small Kentish village to join the thousands of others who were dug deep and dying in the clinging mud of the Somme. Growing into manhood, Tom developed a natural ability to handle a gun as a gamekeeper in the woods. Little did he realise how it would be put to good use when he enlisted into the “Gunners”. With the Second World War looming, he would be sent to France as the German forces pushed the British army towards the blood-soaked beaches of Dunkirk. In a new theatre of war, the enemy fought harder and were more vicious than anything Tom had experienced before. Their cruelty was beyond belief and imagination. As vengeance and hatred burned deep in his heart, the welcoming flame of a candle flickered thousands of miles away in a cottage window in Kent. After all, Tom had written to his mother to tell her he would be home for Christmas.