A thread of Remembrance 11/11/11

Discussion in 'All Anniversaries' started by Susan Smethurst, Nov 5, 2011.

  1. Jonathan Ball

    Jonathan Ball It's a way of life.

    This is a must read this weekend from today's Guardian..

    The first world war left 360,000 children fatherless. Very few now survive, the youngest are in their 90s. These are the last of those who lost a father in the trenches of the western front, on the beaches of Gallipoli or in the deserts of the Middle East. Their stories of suffering and loss are as valid as those of the soldiers, but have been largely ignored. Here, six of them talk about the effects on their lives of losing their fathers so young.

    Donald Overall
    Donald Overall's father died of wounds near Arras, in 1917, leaving a widow and two young sons. Donald is 98.
    I was five when my father came home on leave. He sat me on the instep of his foot, and I used to hold his hands and he would rock me up and down. He was in his army uniform and I could smell his khaki and tobacco because he smoked a pipe. I then remember him carrying me upstairs on his shoulder.
    I remember the day we heard [about his death] very distinctly. Mother and I were downstairs in the hall when the doorbell rang. I was hiding behind her as she was handed an envelope. I remember she opened the letter immediately. I didn't know what it said but she screamed and collapsed on the floor. I didn't know what was wrong.
    Mother stayed in her bedroom for about 10 days and then she turned on her side and said to me, "Your father's dead, he won't come back. Now you are the man of the house." And I said, "Me, Mum?" I was five years old. That changed my life – it had to.
    I'd look after my brother and I'd look after my mother … I accepted it all. Obviously I lost my childhood but I never felt I had, because I had to look after my family and I felt 10 feet tall.
    On 11 November 1920, I was with Mum and my brother at the Cenotaph when it was unveiled by the king. I remember that nobody dared move; nobody wanted to move. There was the Cenotaph resplendent, spotlessly clean. My mother stood there with her arms around us two kids and she cried, and I just stood there dumbfounded.
    I can't forget that day. I was feeling for my mum and I'd never had to confront those feelings before.
    In the second world war, I joined the RAF. On one occasion we came critically close to crashing. At that moment it flashed through my mind that my wife would have a sergeant's pension on which to live. Later, I was racked with the knowledge that I had come perilously close to leaving my sons, and at roughly the same age as when my father had died and left my brother and me.
    At the end of the war, I wanted to stay on in the service. I came home to talk to my wife; I was telling her about this job. She never said anything until I'd finished. "Well, love," she said, "the two boys need their father." Now how could I answer that when I had never had a father? I couldn't sign on for another four years. I would have loved to, but the kids come first don't they?
    Donald visited his father's grave in France in 2007 and said at the time: "I'm an old man, I am supposed to be tough. I thought I was hard, but I'm not. He's my dad. I miss him. I missed him as a boy and I miss him as an old man. It is very important that I have come back. I feel closer now than I have ever been. That time he carried me to bed was the last time and this is the next time."

    Clara Middleton
    Clara Middleton's father, Richard Whitefield, died of his wounds in hospital in 1917. She is 104.
    "Your dad's been wounded, and he's very bad – it's in his leg, a sniper shot him." Of course Mother was crying when we got that news. We used to go every month to see him in hospital in Nottingham, and he looked awful. When Dad died, everything went haywire. Mother went out and was walking up and down the passageway at the side of the house like a mad woman.
    Mother knew that the money coming in wouldn't keep us, so she went to the school and got permission for me to stay at home until the youngest daughter went to school. So I stayed at home and looked after her and looked after the others. I used to do everything at home because my mother was working so hard, six days a week. There was no one else to do it so I did it and I enjoyed it. I didn't miss school because I knew what I was doing was right.
    I was a slave. I went to work for this lady, cleaning. I was only a kid and I'd got to scrub this big floor and some back stairs and I got two shillings for that; they gave me it like it was £100. People used to have me cleaning for them and my mother had to let me go because we wanted the money.
    Old hands I'd got at 10 years old because I was using soda in the water and that was terrible for the hands, and they'd be that painful. I used to get Vaseline and rub it in but people reckoned it was your own urine that was best for your hands – made your hands tingle but it was good.
    Mother was so pleased that I was saving money and looking after the family but she would not show it. She was a very hard woman, hard as nails, but I knew her from old and she did appreciate it. I was proud and I loved doing it, but it did make me old.

    George Musgrave
    George Musgrave's father, Alfred, died of his wounds in 1917. He is 96.
    When he was wounded, my father wrote to my mother, sending his fondest love and kisses "to you and the dear boy", and mother went to see him. She could hardly talk about what she saw there, going into the hospital, but she told me that the men were crying out seeing an Englishwoman, a civilian.
    After he died, she received a letter from the War Office sending the remainder of his possessions. They came in a little brown paper parcel and included his gold watch, the chain of which was hanging out of the brown paper. It had come through the post and nobody had stolen it. That was a vivid memory she had.
    She got a small pension, but the amount was trivial – it never replaced the money Dad would have brought in and, of course, she had to pay the rent and the landlady to keep an eye on me while she was out.
    Mum was a very good seamstress and there came a time when all the other boys in the school had long trousers. She went to the cupboard in the corner of the room. She'd saved my father's trousers, tailoring them to my size. They were drainpipes, out of fashion, and I was the laughing stock of the school. I didn't want other children to know my difficulties, and for that reason I went into my shell. I didn't want to be seen. I didn't feel I had anyone to talk to so I had to fend for myself. I had grown up an isolated child playing on the floor; I had my own world so I could easily retire into it the older I grew.
    Every Armistice Day, Mum would wear black with perhaps a white blouse and Dad's medals. A maroon sounded and we'd see all the vehicles come to a stop, and all the horses and carts and all the people would stand there, and the two of us would look down from our room on to the trams and tram wires and she would shed a tear and grab me and say, "You are all I have."
    The one tangible thing I had from my father was a picture of a train that he drew for me while he was under fire. So when I went to school and began to draw, the teacher said, "Oh, he draws such wonderful engines." That was in memory of my father.

    Charles Chilton
    Charles Chilton's father, also Charles, was killed in action in 1918. He later co-wrote Oh, What A Lovely War with Joan Littlewood. He is 94.
    My father was a rough diamond. He was a painter and decorator's clerk when he decided to join up in October 1916. He'd only just got married, had to, I was on the way and so, with his friend Sunny Morgan, he enlisted – and both got killed.
    Mother remarried but she died shortly after the war, so I went to live with my grandmother. She often talked about my father. She thought he was a saint and quite often she'd have a row with my father's younger brother and she'd say terrible things, "I wish it had been you that had gone and not him," which led to him bursting into tears. It was awful.
    But then because he was dead she thought much more of him, of course. On Armistice Day, my grandmother and Sunny's mother used to get together at our house and cry. Each time, Mrs Morgan would bring a picture of my father and her son together, taken before they went overseas, and she would give it to me. She seemed to have endless copies.
    Periodically and unexpectedly, officials from one of the ministries responsible for war children sent a woman to visit my house to see how I was looked after. There were quite a few of us, eight in all, living in four rooms. Me and two uncles lived in the back kitchen, which was our bedroom, but when the inspector came my grandmother always took me up to a bedroom and said that was where I slept – had they known I lived in the kitchen they'd have taken me away and my grandmother would have lost my dad's war pension given for me.
    I was just an appendage at the end of several of my father's siblings. I was a bit of a nuisance to them because my grandmother seemed to favour me above her own children because she would say "He's my boy's boy," and that made me very precious to her, though I couldn't relate to her loss at all. I'd never met my father, and although I had affection for my mother, by the time I was seven, she was dead.
    When I was married, my wife and I often went to Italy for our holidays, and my grandmother said to me one day, "When you're on your way to Italy, do you ever go near Arras? Why don't you call in and get me a photograph of your father's grave."
    It turned out that he didn't have a grave, but he was on the Arras memorial to the missing. When I saw his name I didn't get emotional. Instead, as we share the same name, it looked like me on the wall, but my grandmother was delighted to see it.

    Violet Downer
    Violet Downer's father, Samuel Baker, killed on the Somme in 1916. She is 98.
    There's a picture of me with Dad taken in an open barn at the end of my grandparents' cottage in Albourne. That was just before he went to France. He was reported missing on the Somme and I remember my mother scanning the papers every day, looking for his name. They never said he wasn't coming home. I don't recall Mum saying he would never come home, but he didn't.
    We were always moving about. Mum just couldn't settle after Dad was killed. When the government produced a brass plaque for all those who had lost someone, my mother wasn't grateful, she was disgusted. "That for a husband," she said.
    Mum remarried but never showed any emotion with her husband, and I never saw them hold hands or kiss. I don't think she loved him. She was still talking about Sam. Mother used to say, "Sam did this" and "Sam did that", and my stepfather used to say, "Oh, it's always Sam!"'
    I never forgot Dad. There was nobody to replace him so I never really understood why my mother married again because she doted on my father. I asked my mum sometimes, "Why did you marry again?" and she used to say, "I had to do something or we would have landed up in a home."

    Gertrude Harris
    Gertrude Harris's father, Harry Farr, was shot for "cowardice" in 1916. He was eventually pardoned in 2006. She is 98.
    Six months after my father was killed, my mother's pension and my allowance was suddenly stopped. Mum went back to the post office and asked the postmistress, who obviously knew my mother, andwho said, "I am ever so sorry, Mrs Farr, but there is nothing for you." She must have inquired and told Mother that owing to the way her husband had died, you were only allowed a pension for six months and nothing for me. So there she was, aged 21, with a three-year-old child.
    We were made homeless and Mother, in looking for work, had to explain why she needed to go into service with a young daughter. Eventually, my mother got a job at a home in Hampstead and they were willing to take me, which in that era was a wonderful thing as it was unheard of for a child to go into service.
    My upbringing was unnatural. Whenever I hurt myself, Mother used to say, "Now don't you cry. Don't you let Cook hear you." She was so afraid that if I made a fuss we'd have to go. If I was ill, I used to be isolated in the bedroom garret. If I got mumps or measles I would be left up there with a sheet dipped in Lysol draped across the door to keep the germs away from the rest of the family.
    I never knew my father had been executed. Then, at a family gathering 40 years later, an aunt said to me, "Is this true what I hear about how Harry died?" The rest of the family turned round and said "We don't talk about Harry." I didn't know what she was talking about. So wWhen I came home I asked my mother: "Is that right, what Auntie Nellie said?" She said, "Yes, it's true. Your father was shot for cowardice and the family disowned him."
    Mum was a little lady but she was a very proud woman, and always said, "My Harry was not a coward, he was a brave soldier." On Armistice Day, she used to watch those veterans and say: "Harry should be there with them."
    My daughter Janet led the campaign to get a pardon for my father. When the news came in 2006 from the solicitor, I was so astonished that when he said, "We've got it," I didn't know what he meant, and it took quite a while to realise. To me now, Harry is a real person whereas before I didn't know him. Now I feel I do. He's not just Harry any more, he's my dad.


    Remembrance Day: 'I'm an old man, I am supposed to be tough. I thought I was hard, but I'm not. He's my dad and I miss him' | Life and style | The Guardian
     
    CL1 likes this.
  2. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    The 3rd grave of 3 men (see earlier post of the other 2) buried in the village churchyard where I live.

    Name: MARTIN, FREDERICK VICTOR
    Nationality: United Kingdom
    Rank: Sergeant (Obs.)
    Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
    Age: 25
    Date of Death: 10/09/1941
    Service No: 1375907
    Additional information: Son of William Thomas Martin and Mary Jane Martin, of Eynsford.
    Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
    Grave/Memorial Reference: Grave 186.
    Cemetery: EYNSFORD (ST. MARTIN) CHURCHYARD


    I found this grave after a couple of hours hunting a couple of years ago. It was hidden due to being overgrown. This thread prompted me to adopt it and give it a bit of TLC in time for Remembrance Sunday. Just come back from a hour of weeding and washing the stones. Much better. You can at least read his name on the side.

    Details of his loss:-

    10 September 1941.

    25 OTU. B Flight.
    Wellington IC X9872
    Op: Training.

    Crew.
    F/L. D J. Bassett +
    Sgt. F V. Martin +
    Sgt. W G. Kilsby +
    Sgt. G F. Large +
    F/S. T. Highton DFM +
    Sgt. M J. Byrne +

    Took off Finningley for night bombing training. At 2145 hrs flew into farm buildings near Southrey, a fenland village some 4 miles NW of Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire.

    All are buried in cemeteries within the UK.


    Before.

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    After.

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    Frederick's name on the Eynsford Village War Memorial.

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    Gage, 4jonboy, CL1 and 2 others like this.
  3. Oldman

    Oldman Very Senior Member

    Ramacal
    May I congratulate you on a splendid and spirited piece of dedication prompted by a thread.
     
  4. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Rob

    well done
     
  5. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Well done Rob
     
  6. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    To all the 13th King's, wherever and whenever they fell.:poppy::poppy:
     
  7. Susan Smethurst

    Susan Smethurst Senior but too talkative

    Ramacal
    May I congratulate you on a splendid and spirited piece of dedication prompted by a thread.


    Well said. A wonderful practical tribute to one of the Fallen which speaking personally has made launching the thread mean more than ever. :poppy:
     
  8. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Well done Rob.

    You have done with yours what I hope to do with this WW1 lad I found in the Melbourne General Cemetery. He died in April 1921 after returning in 1919.

    Gillett_Low 3.jpg

    I have run into a couple of hurdles but the light is at the end of the tunnel. I hope I can post a then and now for this lad.

    I have been unable to find any relatives so the legalities to giving the grave a makeover look to be solved.

    Wire brushing, painting, new stones and hopefully a new headstone if the cost is not too high.
     
  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    In 1936 when Charlotte Wood (née
    Fullman) placed a wreath on the
    tomb of the Unknown Soldier at
    Westminster Abbey, on behalf of
    all Canadian mothers, she
    became known as the first Silver
    Cross mother. Mrs. Wood immigrated
    with part of her family from Britain to take up a
    160 acre Dominion Land Grant northwest of Edmonton in
    1905.
    Of the 11 sons that Mrs. Wood sent to WWI, five
    did not return.
    Louis was lost at sea when his ship the
    HMS Hogue was torpedoed in Sept. 1914; Fred died at
    the Somme, Harry at Gallipoli, Joseph at Passchendaele
    and Percy at Vimy Ridge. In a 1936 pilgrimage to Vimy for
    the unveiling of the new memorial, the by then iconic Mrs.
    Wood, proudly wearing five sets of medals, was presented
    to King Edward VIII. When she died at the outbreak of
    WWII her funeral was attended by large numbers of veterans.
    The Winnipeg Free Press stated that,”… the Imperial

    Ladies’ Auxiliary attended the last rites in a body. War widows,
    of which body she was an honoured member, held
    the service at the graveside and each member present
    passed the open grave, dropping a poppy on the remains.”
     
  10. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

  11. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Now and again, Hollywood gets it just right!

    Gen. Marshall: I have a letter here, written a long time ago to a Mrs. Bixby in Boston. So bear with me.
    Dear Madam,
    I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
    I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine that would attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
    I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved, lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
    Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
    Abraham Lincoln


    Lincoln speech Saving Private Ryan « The Agile Warrior
     
    Jonathan Ball likes this.
  12. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    A very emotional scene which clearly set the future of the movie.
     
  13. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    Well done Rob.

    You have done with yours what I hope to do with this WW1 lad I found in the Melbourne General Cemetery. He died in April 1921 after returning in 1919.

    View attachment 66642

    I have run into a couple of hurdles but the light is at the end of the tunnel. I hope I can post a then and now for this lad.

    I have been unable to find any relatives so the legalities to giving the grave a makeover look to be solved.

    Wire brushing, painting, new stones and hopefully a new headstone if the cost is not too high.

    Hi Geoff,

    If there is insufficient information on the grave to indicate who lays at rest there and as you say, no relatives around to look after it, you could apply to the relevent CWGC to have a headstone erected. Whether they would consider 1921 to be outside of their responsibilty, would be another matter.

    My simple bit of weeding, wash and brush up is a small price to pay for a reasonable effect. You are to be commended for your efforts, even more so. Look forward to seeing your eventual after pictures.:)

    Regards - Rob
     
  14. Scout Sniper

    Scout Sniper Senior Member

    [​IMG]
    Gander, a Newfoundland, served in the Royal Rifles, a regiment of the Canadian Army. During the Battle of Hong Kong (8 December 1941), Gander picked up a thrown Japanese hand grenade and rushed forward with it back toward the enemy, saving the lives of wounded Canadian soldiers, but himself dying in the explosion. He received the Dickin Medal posthumously in 2000. (Image via.)
     
  15. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Hi Geoff,

    If there is insufficient information on the grave to indicate who lays at rest there and as you say, no relatives around to look after it, you could apply to the relevent CWGC to have a headstone erected. Whether they would consider 1921 to be outside of their responsibilty, would be another matter.

    My simple bit of weeding, wash and brush up is a small price to pay for a reasonable effect. You are to be commended for your efforts, even more so. Look forward to seeing your eventual after pictures.:)

    Regards - Rob


    Hi Rob,

    I have ascertained from cemetery records that there are three burials in the same plot. His mother and younger sister lie there. The headstone is partly decipherable however they will assist with exact details.

    Tracking down the stonemason company after 90 years (or the records) would be an impossible task unless a current company who took over the business kept files going back that far.

    Life wasn't meant to be easy Rob!

    Cheers

    Geoff
     
  16. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    Photos from today in Eynsford Village in Kent.

    The grave of Lt Lieutenant Oliver Richard August in St Martins Churchyard (killed by an improvised explosive device whilst on patrol in the Loy Mandeh area of the Nad 'Ali district in Helmand province on Friday, 27 May 2011)

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    The grave of Sapper Mark Anthony Smith close to Oliver Augustin.

    Died on 26 July 2010 whilst serving with the Counter-IED Task Force in Sangin Area, Helmand Province.

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    The War Memorial after the Remembrance Service today. The most moving image today was that of a small toddler with a dummy in her mouth going to place a small posy of poppies on her own. You could hear all the ahhh's as everyone watched. Bless her.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Jonathan Ball

    Jonathan Ball It's a way of life.

    The service in Aspull this morning was very nice and well attended with around 350 there. I'm pleased to report that my 7 year old son was given the honour of laying a wreath and after a Guinness in the Legion we then returned to have a closer look. Two wooden crosses caught my eye and I thought they were worthy of a mention...


    Name: MORGAN, ALFRED
    Initials: A
    Nationality: United Kingdom
    Rank: Private
    Regiment/Service: Durham Light Infantry
    Unit Text: 8th Bn.
    Age: 32
    Date of Death: 14/06/1944
    Service No: 3716963
    Additional information: Son of Leonard and Elibeth Morgan, of Wigan, Lancashire; husband of Ruth Morgan.
    Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
    Grave/Memorial Reference: IV. J. 3.
    Cemetery: RYES WAR CEMETERY, BAZENVILLE

    [​IMG]


    Name: MARTIN, JACK
    Initials: J
    Nationality: United Kingdom
    Rank: Corporal
    Regiment/Service: Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment
    Unit Text: 6th Bn.
    Age: 28
    Date of Death: 29/04/1945
    Service No: 1695543
    Additional information: Son of Hannah Martin; husband of Elsie May Martin, of Higher Ince, Lancashire.
    Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
    Grave/Memorial Reference: VII, D, 8.
    Cemetery: FORLI WAR CEMETERY

    [​IMG]

    The 1939-1945 Section...

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  18. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    The service in Aspull this morning was very nice and well attended with around 350 there. I'm pleased to report that my 7 year old son was given the honour of laying a reef and after a Guinness in the Legion we then returned to have a closer look. Two wooden crosses caught my eye and I thought they were worthy of a mention...


    Name: MORGAN, ALFRED
    Initials: A
    Nationality: United Kingdom
    Rank: Private
    Regiment/Service: Durham Light Infantry
    Unit Text: 8th Bn.
    Age: 32
    Date of Death: 14/06/1944
    Service No: 3716963
    Additional information: Son of Leonard and Elibeth Morgan, of Wigan, Lancashire; husband of Ruth Morgan.
    Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
    Grave/Memorial Reference: IV. J. 3.
    Cemetery: RYES WAR CEMETERY, BAZENVILLE

    [​IMG]



    A headstone photo to go with one of those memorial crosses.

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  19. Deacs

    Deacs Well i am from Cumbria.

     
  20. Jonathan Ball

    Jonathan Ball It's a way of life.

    A headstone photo to go with one of those memorial crosses.

    Nice one Rob.
     

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