Soldier Record

I remember my father as a quiet, gentle man, who hated loud voices and arguments. As a child I also remember that he had awful problems with his feet: I did not realise that this was the result of trench foot. He never talked about the war and changed the subject if it ever came up, and only once do I remember him mentioning what I thought was an odd place – 'Wipers'. He did not join the war at the beginning because he was, in medical terms, AII. However, he was conscripted in 1917 and sent to France, and was at Passchendaele. Although he never spoke about the war, I was able, after he died, to piece together where he was. In photographs, one shows him as a fresh-faced lad, but the one taken at his wedding in 1921 shows him looking like a man of middle age.

He never talked about the war and changed the subject if it ever came up.

When I went to Ypres a couple of years ago, I went to the area where he fought, and I must admit I stood there in one of the remaining trenches and apologised to him in my heart for not realising what an awful thing happened to him in 1917. It put its mark on him and stayed with him all his life. He was only 61 when he died, and I was a young woman of 27. I have only one of his medals, the Victory Medal, which has his name, number and regiment around the edge. Towards the end of the war he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, and so on the medal roll card he has two army numbers. I have his discharge papers and they are kept very safely.