Soldier Record

I never met my Great Uncle Frank, he died in January 1918, from pulmonary tuberculosis, following wounds received in action. That was 34 years before I was born but it may as well have been 340, for how remote I felt from WW1. Until that is, I grew older and listened to my father's memories of Frank and of the funeral passing through the little mining village of Tibshelf, with the coffin draped with a Union Jack. Now when I look at his age at death, just 24 years, and realise that he was younger than my youngest son is now, I begin to feel very close to Uncle Frank and the family who suffered the loss of him.

For his country, he was trusted and true

Frank was the youngest brother of my paternal grandmother. He was an electrician at Tibshelf colliery and aged just 21 when he answered Kitchener's call, in September 1914, by enlisting with the 12th (Service) Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment - 'The Sheffield Pals'- his service number was 12/380. The heavy losses these Pals Battalions suffered are well documented. They played a pivotal role on The Somme, which Frank survived, only to be wounded and discharged in May 1917. He returned home, only to live out the final eight months of his life as an invalid and die a suffocating death. My father was only 8 years old when Frank died but until his death aged 94, he could vividly remember the funeral and that flag draped coffin, moving silently past the family home and on through the tightly knit Derbyshire mining community in which my great-grandparents lived. Frank's death is commemorated on the Tibshelf Memorial outside the church of St. John the Baptist. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission are currently working on a Memorial stone to mark his grave there. Sadly, his medal roll indicates that his service medals were returned by the family, who took his death hard. After all they had seen it at first hand and witnessed how he had suffered, rather than receiving a telegram and imagining a swift, glorious death on a battlefield far away. Ironically and tragically my Grandmother held a grudge against all Germans for the rest of her life, despite my father's gentle protestations that 'they were just people like ourselves trying to live their lives in the shadow of those who hold the power.' She died on December 13th 1940 alongside my grandfather, her daughter in law (my father's first wife) and four year old grandson (my half brother), all victims of the Sheffield Blitz. My father survived because he was on duty as an Auxilliary Fireman.

My generation, born in this country post 1945, have so much to be grateful for. May Frank, Elizabeth, Harry, Edna and little Geoffrey, along with the countless other victims of man's inhumanity to man, rest in eternal peace.