Tommy: A World War II Novel

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Hopefully the money will not be needed, but if the tumours do return, his survival chances will be about 10% given the treatment options here. Football was an amateur sport in Hungary when he arrived but his knowledge, experience, ideas and passing style were very important for our players to learn from. He started our journey to a different level.

The old stadium was built in 1923 but England did not play anyone other than Scotland there until they beat Argentina in May 1951, and had won twice and drawn twice against continental opposition before Hungary's 6-3 triumph destroyed that illusion of invincibility in England's 23rd home game against continental opposition. TV: And that’s the absolute truth, determination is the one thing that will always carry you through. But there are so many bands, I mean there are bands left right and centre all over this country. TV: Actually it was funny, when John phoned up, he was down London, he said err, …I was at work I was plugging furniture I got this phone call “Alright Tom?”, “Who’s that?” “It’s John” He said “Are you sitting down mate?” “No, I’m stood up” “Well sit down then” I said when he told me the news “great” and straight to the boss, that’s it, finished, quit –We will conclude this article with some immortal lines from perhaps the world’s best bad poet, the Bard of Dundee William McGonagall, who responded to what he saw as the disparaging tone of Kipling towards the British Tommy with his own poem from 1898, ‘Lines in Praise of Tommy Atkins’.

Tommy” was seldom singled out in its early days for individual praise but when linked with ‘Danny Deever’ and ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ it was covered by the general descriptions applied to them as ‘splendid’ or ‘works of genius’. However, at the time “Tommy” raised the British public’s awareness of the need for a change of attitude to the private soldier to such an extent that the humorous weekly, Punch, devoted much of its Christmas number of 1890 to a spoof ‘Life on Mars’, depicting a parallel Britain on Mars where the British soldier was, at last, being ‘treated rational’. Victory meant a happy 59th birthday for Robins manager Nigel Pearson, whose side climb to seventh in the early-season table.

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Being Punch, the idea was taken to extremes and Tommy was depicted lounging in his soldiers’ club while his officers waited on him or ran about doing guards and other duties. Totally satirical, but the fact that Punch took it as a major theme shows just how much effect Kipling had had on the public consciousness that year.

It was a special thing to beat the inventors of the game. I would not say Jimmy had a big impact on the outcome of that match but he had a major role in establishing our football culture and all football people in this country are still aware of that. TA: Yes a little wee place called Marske and it was a err, …. like a bungalow, a converted bungalow, a smashing place a really good sound in it. However, it appears that the public, like Punch, took the poem to heart as “Tommy”, so that is what it became. As the match was staged by the FA, we felt we could not invite him ourselves," Hungary's president Barcs told the press after the game. "But I would like to say that Hungary will invite Jimmy Hogan to come to Budapest next May when we meet England again, and then we will honour him.JDH: There’s one thing, the place where we’ve started to make our own, they had a regular band and they still got it, but all their followers have come over to our night when we play. Because we’ve got something new, more alive and it’s a fresh sound we’ve got y’know ….. And I suppose it’s, they were getting settled in their ways and becoming accustomed to one band all the time. We came on their doorstep and as soon as we started to play their eyes popped wide open, they didn’t know what to think – TA: Yeah, we started in the err, I don’t know if people out there know about this, in the North East [of England] in the Working Men’s Clubs doing other people’s stuff and cabaret type thing y’know. After a while that gets a bit tedious playing other people’s songs and like John here gets the urge to write material and take it from there, y’know. We just want to do our own stuff.

I am really pleased with how we played. It's great to have good young players as part of it. We have quite a nice blend." Tommy Vance: BFBS UK on a Thursday, it’s time for an experiment on BFBS UK. What we are going to do is we are going to adopt our own group and follow their fortunes, and believe me I know, the hard world of the music industry. Now we’re not going to cheat by taking on an established group with a recording contract signed sealed and delivered. We’re starting out with The Stilettos, two days before they go into the recording studio to record their first professional demo. Now John Hastings and Tommy Atkinson are here from The Stilettos. Gentlemen, welcome to BFBS UK. TA: yeah, the Working Men’s Club, this is a really good example. One band I were in, got to this club, got the gear set up it was a typical Northern flat-cap Working Men’s Club and we went into the dressing room and said to the concert secretary “before we go on, can you put all the house lights down and the stage lights, so the whole club is in complete darkness” and he said “can’t do that lad, sorry son can’t do that” I said “why not, this is our set?” he said “can’t do that, they all want to sit down there at the front and read the paper”! [laughs] You know I couldn’t believe it, so we said “OK keep the lights on”

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Fresh from a first league success of the new season in midweek, Bristol City began in confident mood. In the 282 games they had played since recognised international matches began more than 80 years earlier in 1872, England had never, by 1953, been beaten on home soil by continental opposition. But Tommy posted on social media on Monday that Rio is now cancer-free. Tommy tweeted: "Rio’s scans show no evidence of disease. We saw our consultant today at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. He showed us the before and after images of Rio’s scans. The remaining tumours on Rio’s lungs have gone and they can’t see any cancer anywhere else in his body.