Soldier Record

Walter Lee was a loving father and grandfather. I have only four years of knowing my grandfather, but they were years full of his love and care. He joined the Royal Lancashire Regiment aged 17 years (in 1913) to fight for his country and became a machine gunner in his regiment. I have a plan in his army book of the position of a farmhouse they were to take from the Germans; it was on a hill. The whole regiment was injured and my grandfather ended up in a field hospital with his legs so badly shot up and infected that the doctors, who had few supplies and medicines, were going to smother him with a pillow as they could do nothing for him. My great-grandfather, Frederick Foxen Lee, was a herbalist. He travelled from England to the field hospital in France and waded in a stream to collect leeches to treat my grandfather. The treatment worked and both men travelled home to Bolton. My grandfather continued to work in de Havilland to help the war effort despite his injuries. He later ran a freeholding with chickens and pigs. His eldest daughter Lucy remembers life on the freeholding. She never ate pork as their two intelligent pigs Billy and Betty had to be killed for food. Even though the family were given the carcasses they couldn't eat them as the pigs had been treated as family.