My Grandad Reginald Anderson's Silent Struggle

My grandad is, in part, the inspiration for my academic career. Reginald Anderson joined up in 1935 and saw the transition of his regiment, the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards (the "Skins"), from cavalry to mechanised. He was born in Staffordshire, his father was Scottish, and his family were all miners in the Black Country collieries. They lived in abject poverty. The Army was his only means of escape.

After the relative quiet of the Phoney War, his unit had to retreat through Belgium to be evacuated from Dunkirk. The horrors of his experiences during this action haunted him throughout his life.

As a boy, I was ignorant as to the impact of war trauma. But my grandad exhibited the classic symptoms of PTSD as we understand them now - especially vivid night terrors. He never really spoke about what he had witnessed, but he bore the physical (shrapnel wounds) and emotional scars. He was medically discharged from the Army in 1943 with "ulcers" - I believe a euphemism for psychological injury. He worked for the remainder of the war in the brickworks and then on the railway.

All through my childhood he, and by association my Nan, suffered from the undiagnosed and untreated repercussions of chronic PTSD. I remember staying at their house and hearing him crying out in the night. As a child he regaled stories of France and Belgium and taught me a bit of his own pidgin French. His only story about Dunkirk was that his brother (RAMC) was literally a stones throw away from him on the beach and he didn't know whether he was dead or alive!

My Grandad died when I was 21 - I never got to really explore his history! I went on to train as a mental health social worker and I am now a Professor of Public Services Research specialising in the impact of military service. I certainly would not be doing what I do now, if it were not for his influence and the treatable psychological struggles that he needlessly endured.