Read A Medal for Leroy for Free Online

Auntie Mary knows the truth of everything that’s written here – she was so much part of the whole story – but she’s always told me it was best to keep it as a secret between her and me, just the two of us, and so it always has been. That way, she thinks, no one comes to any harm.
    Until just recently, until my last visit to the hospital, when they told me, I suppose I always used to believe she was right. But not any more. I think there are some things that are so much part of who we are, that we should know about them, that we have a right to know about them.
    If you’re reading this at all, Michael, then it means you’ve found my little writing pad behind the photo of your Papa, just as I intended you to. Please don’t be too upset. Read it again from time to time as you get older. I think it will be easier to understand as you get older. It’s not so much that wisdom comes with age – as we older people rather like to believe. It doesn’t. But I am sure that as we grow up we do become more able to understand ourselves and other people a little better. We are more able to deal with difficulty, and to forgive perhaps. If you are anything like me, Michael – and I think you probably are – I am sure you will become more understanding and forgiving as the years pass. I hope so, because I’m sure that it’s only in forgiving that we find real peace of mind.
    I’m writing this as well, because I want you to feel proud of who you are, and proud of the people who made you. Believe you me, you have much to feel proud about. Perhaps my problem has always been that I have never been proud enough of who I am. I am a bit muddle-headed, simple-minded perhaps, and foolish – certainly foolish. I have always allowed my sister, whom I love dearly, to do most of my thinking for me. It’s just how we are and always have been. She’s been the strong one all my life, my rock you might say. I know she can seem a bit of a know-all, a bit overbearing; but as you’ll soon discover, she has looked after me, stood by me when no one else would. There’s a lot more to Mary than meets the eye – that’s true of everyone, I think. I should have been quite lost in this life without her. So here’s our story, hers and mine – and most importantly, yours.
    None of this will make sense if you don’t know to begin with how Mary and I were brought up, what kind of home we came from. We were born – Mary as you know, an hour or so before me – way up north in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire, in a grey old house in the countryside miles away from any town. I went into Aberdeen – which was less than twenty miles from our home – just once in my entire childhood, and then it was to the hospital to have my tonsils out. The countryside around us, and our village, was our whole world. We didn’t speak English in our house, but a strange language they call ‘Doric’. Not many people in our village spoke it. A few did, but only very few. I don’t think anyone speaks it any more these days, which is a shame. Father insisted we spoke it, read it, and even said our prayers in it.
    Father was a Minister of the Church – the Kirk we called it. He was rather disapproving and distant with us, a stern man. I don’t think I can remember him smiling once. I can’t even imagine it happening. Mother was kind enough with us, but she was very meek and mild. She lived, as we did, under Father’s rules, under his shadow. It became clear to us as we grew up that she had to do what Father said in all things. She was truly fearful of him, I think, as Mary and I were too. He never beat us or harmed us, but he was always a brooding presence. He moved about the house like a ghost. Every time he came into the room it seemed that a cold draught came in with him.
     
    So our childhood was spent mostly outside the house, as far away from Father as possible. Outside – always providing we had done our homework and Father had checked it – we could wander