Soldier Record

Sidney, my great uncle, was one of eight brothers who served in the First War. Three were killed in action; Sidney, who was killed by shell fire at Thiepval in 1916, Archie, who died of wounds at Gallipoli in 1915 and Ralph, lost when HMS Monmouth went down with all hands at the Battle of Coronel in 1914. The five others survived but variously suffered wounds and shell shock and one was discharged medically unfit. One of these five had actually returned from Canada whence he had emigrated to enlist alongside his brothers. Sidney became famous in a small way some 84 years after his death when the Dramatic Society at Wotton under Edge, Gloucestershire staged a play based on letters he had written home from France. It seems that Sidney was a prodigious letter writer and after the death of his wife over 100 letters written between March and October 1916 were discovered which had remained undisturbed for over 80 years. It was these that formed the storyline of the play.

As a footnote to this story, when the memorial to the fallen was erected at Wotton under Edge in 1920, my great-great grandmother, Ruth Cornock was invited to perform the unveiling having had eight sons serve King and Country in the "War to end all Wars". She not only lost three sons killed in action but two grandsons also.