An Educational Journal
Sept 2014 No 53
Military History
The Commonwealth
War Graves Cemetery
at Tyne Cot near Ypres
In this issue
SOURCES
1 Front Cover Picture: Roger Frost SW Herts U3A
Sources is published by: The Third Age Trust
19 East Street, Bromley BR1 1QE
Tel: 020 8466 6139 E-mail: [email protected]
Sources is copyright and circulated only to U3A members
Nothing may be reproduced without permission
3 History Boy Meets Great Uncle Fred: Jane Morris
4 It’s Only A Penny: Don Drew
5 Events
In the next issue
5 Interactive Online Courses
The theme of the next issue in Jan 2015 (No 54) will be
The Performing Arts
For Issue No 55 in June 2015 the focus will be on:
Health and Well-being
6 WWI Miniatures: Jo Keys
7 Arundel History: Ann Burrough
8 Resource Centre News: Susan Radford
Contributions are considered for inclusion by an editorial panel.
For No 54 please submit them not later than 24 November – via
the national office or direct to the editor at:
Gelt Mill House, Castle Carrock, Brampton CA8 9NQ
You can send them by e-mail to [email protected]
(preferred), on CD or cleanly typed suitable for scanning. Every
effort will be made to acknowledge them. Contributors are
advised to discuss their story with the editor before submission
or request a copy of our writers guidelines.
9 SLP Update London Region: Priscilla Macpherson
10 SLP WWI History Project: Pat Wilbud
11 SLP Concientious Objectors: Dee Kushlick-Williams
12 SLP Stow Maries War Aerodrome: Roger Smith
13 The Birth Of The RAF: Ian Philpott
How to receive Sources
14 Sully Remembers 1914-1918: Kathy Beach
ources is published in January, June and September. Back
numbers can be viewed online and printed. Visit the Third
Age Trust website at www.u3a.org.uk. You will need Adobe
Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded free.
15 Local History: Ivor Manley
S
16 Military History Group: Don Macdonald
16 Our Ancestors At War: Pat Styles
Feedback
17 WWI Battlefields: Judith Bogie & Roger Frost
f you have any comments on topics in this issue please write
to the editorial panel, c/o U3A National Office or e-mail the
editor at: [email protected] Tel: 01228 670403
Note that the views expressed within are those of the
contributors and not those of the Third Age Trust.
I
T
he next issue of Sources
will focus on The
Performing Arts so we
would like to hear from groups
that do indeed perform for an
audience.
This might be just at a U3A
gathering but that will do.
Hearing about how groups
prepare for such an event will
be useful to others.
Of course we would like to
know how groups are set up
and run so that other group
leaders might benefit from
such help and advice. This
may also encourage new
readers to start new groups.
18 Not An Interesting Town: Michael Allen
19 Stories Behind The Headstones: Ann Garraway
20 The Thiepval Memorial, Somme: Roger Frost
In my view
hen compiling this issue
I soon became affected
by the accounts from people
whose lives were changed by
the two world wars.
An editor can get drawn into
their chronicles and with
stories such as these it isn’t
easy to remain aloof.
I am just back from a
journey to Normandy where
Pat and I visited several sites
of the D-Day Landings.
A stroll along Omaha Beach
reveals nothing of what went
on there 70 years ago.
Children play and couples
walk holding hands.
W
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
But the museums and
exhibitions bring the event to
life with startling imagery, and
the cemeteries are a sobering
tribute to the fallen.
What remains today: bomb
craters, concrete pontoons,
batteries with rusting guns, are
evidence of the colossal scale
of the operation.
But for raw emotion there is
nothing like the WWI museum
at Ypres. Pat and I went there
two years ago and it was an
2
Editor
experience I will never forget.
As soon as our group
entered and began the tour I
could sense the terrible things
that lay ahead.
Overcome, I almost turned
and left but then decided I had
to do this in my own time and
in my own way.
So I left the group and
continued alone, from one
dreadful scene to another,
weeping unashamedly and
unobserved.
History Boy Meets His Great Uncle Fred
Jane Morris : Oundle U3A
M
ilitary History was one of the first
interest groups formed in Oundle
& District U3A when it was set up
five years ago. This proved so popular
among the male membership that a second
group was soon up and running.
I say ‘male membership’ because these
groups have not attracted any of our female
members, although they have joined the men on trips to the
Royal Engineers Museum, the Historic Dockyard at Chatham,
and the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas.
Military History has proved to be a subject which attracts
only male members – an issue which is often raised.
The two groups get together for presentations or visits and
recently visited Bentley Priory Museum, headquarters of RAF
Fighter Command in WWII and newly-restored by the Battle of
Britain Trust.
Military History One, known locally as the Oundle History
Boys, embarked on their overseas adventures four years ago and
this has become an annual event. The members decided they
would like to understand at first hand the campaigns they were
discussing and, rather than book an organised trip, make
independent arrangements.
Using the U3A approach that there is no distinction between
those who teach and those who learn, certain members of the
group took responsibility for sections of the itinerary, did their
research and led the visits.
A group member takes responsibility for finding the hotel and
another for making the travel arrangements so it is a shared
undertaking. At the outset the leader of our French Conversation
group was a member so responsibility for locating hotels was
passed to him, but the other members of the group can get by
with their schoolboy French.
That first year, five intrepid travellers set off in one car and
explored Azincourt (the anglicised name being Agincourt) and
the battlefields of the Somme. On their return, the next monthly
session was spent presenting the photos and report of the trip
which must have encouraged more participants. The next year
the group hired a minibus to accommodate everyone.
This is more successful than taking cars. Everyone enjoys the
camaraderie and discussions that take place en route and the
driving is shared between them.
The focus of the second year was the Normandy D-Day
landings and in 2013 they combined the WWI battlefields with
Waterloo. This year the trip was focussed on the Battle of the
Bulge between December 1944 and January 1945, and on the
sampling of the vast range of Belgian beers!
Each Oundle History Boy is issued with a red polo shirt
which makes it easy to spot group members. This has also led
to some special attention at sites such as the Newfoundland
Memorial Museum and Park where they enjoyed a personal tour
of the preserved trenches from a Canadian student volunteer.
Not to be left out, last year Military History Two invaded
Normandy. Forty years ago one of the members of the group,
Peter Straker, had been given a tin box by his great aunt.
MH1 at a tank at La Roche
This box contained
medals and a diary
written by his Great
Uncle Fred who went to
France to fight in WWI.
Forty years ago Peter
was not particularly
interested but more
recently got to know his
Great Uncle through
reading the daily log
which is written in
beautiful tiny pencil
script. Fred described
how, as a linesman, it was
his duty to take telephone
lines out to observation
posts and repair lines,
through the mud with
shells crashing around
him.
The grave of
He noted how one of
Peter’s Great Uncle Fred
his friends had been
lucky enough to get a ‘blighty wound’ and he looked forward to
the food parcels and letters from home.
On 22 October 1917 his diary entry reads that he had been
taken to a hospital with 50 shrapnel wounds: “Oh what a ride.
Put to bed, nice hot drink and hot water bottle.”
Despite the obvious pain of his wounds he says he’s: “doing
fine, everything is très bon.” and the entries are still in his
beautiful handwriting until 24 October where it becomes a
scrawl. Great Uncle Fred died of his injuries on 2 November
1917 at the age of 34.
Peter did some research using the website
www.findagrave.com to discover that his grave is at Étaples
Military Cemetery near Boulogne. The lads in Military History
Two searched the huge cemetery and Peter finally met the Great
Uncle he had never known, leaving a Royal British Legion
wooden cross and poppy in remembrance.
3
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Don Drew
Carmarthen U3A
IT’S ONLY A PENNY
Picture: Martin Drew
U
3A members may
well recall barrel
organs playing
by the kerbside in the streets of their
towns. I have one recollection which has
remained with me ever since such a
moment in the late 1920s.
I was a little lad then, still holding my
mother’s hand as we went shopping
along the busy Ilford High Road. I
remember hearing jingly music, and then
coming upon three shabbily-dressed
men, one of them turning the handle of a
barrel organ.
Their cloth caps were too large for
them because of their sunken cheeks. I
suppose they were plain hungry. Those
were hard times. It was much later that I
realised that what was pinned to their
worn jackets were frayed medal ribbons.
My Mum – always a soft touch – put a
copper or two into the grubby cap which
one of the men held out, and received a
muttered: “Thank you Lady.”
When I gave her a questioning look
she explained, saying (and I can hear her
now): “They’re old soldiers who fought
for us in the Great War.”
Reliving that moment it comes
strongly to me that she would have been
motivated by the death of her brother in
that terrible conflict ten years before.
Their widowed mother – my maternal
grandmother – I remember as a little
woman with silver hair in a bun and with
skirts down to the floor. I never saw her
in anything but black.
A link with her dead soldier son aged
24 was a round bronze plaque which
stood on her sideboard, displayed on its
little easel. It was that easel – a miniature
of the blackboard easel at school – which
as a child fascinated me the most.
Some 85 years later that same plaque is
now in my care and it is beside me as I
write. It is pictured here inscribed with
the full name of the man who, if he had
lived, would have become my Uncle
Fleetwood.
He had been an infantryman in The
Rifle Brigade, and a few years ago I
made a pilgrimage to his grave which is
in one of the smaller war cemeteries in
France and quite close to the scene of his
death. It was a lovely September day and
so unbelievably still and peaceful.
I have been looking into the history of
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Don researched this subject for his U3A annual booklet
these memorial plaques, and it’s an
interesting one. It was in 1916 that the
proposal for them came about.
The euphoria of August 1914 with its
flag-waving and cries of ‘Home by
Christmas’, was but a memory – the
lengthening casualty lists spoke
eloquently of the true cost.
The names of the WWI fallen which we
can see on each little village war memorial
may be few, but how strongly the loss of
those young men must have impacted
upon the local communities – then and for
years to come.
The year 1916 was not an auspicious
one. There was the Easter Rising in
Dublin and in May the Battle of Jutland,
a momentous engagement in the North
Sea with heavy losses on both sides.
Barely a month after that came the
great Somme offensive, with 60,000
British casualties on the first day. So at a
time when the prospect of continued
conflict must have stretched distantly
ahead, there was this desire to provide
4
something as individual permanent
memorials for the fallen.
The proposal was made public with
The Times headline of 7 November 1916
which read: Memento for the Fallen.
State Gift for Relatives.
A committee was set up to progress the
idea, in which both Houses of Parliament
were represented, together with the War
Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial
Office, the India Office, and the
Dominions. Artistic input was provided
by the British Museum, the V&A and the
National Gallery.
The way forward was by a public
competition and this was announced the
following August. The commemoration
was to be in the form of a bronze plaque.
A symbolical figure and the wording:
HE DIED FOR
FREEDOM AND HONOUR
were to form integral parts of the
design. There was a prize of £500 – a
quite magnificent sum which amounts to
some £30,000 today.
cont...
He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered
among those who, at the call of King and Country,
left all that was dear to them, endured hardness,
faced danger, and finally passed out of sight of men
by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their
own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those
who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten
Reflect for a moment upon the elegance of the phrase:
‘. . . finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty
and self-sacrifice . . .’
Such sentiments ring somewhat strangely in our ears today,
but all those years ago attitudes and standards were different.
The mood of the time is captured well by Deborah Lake,
where she writes in her book* of the men of the Royal Navy and
Royal Marines who ‘fought because of patriotism and a belief
in their King and their Country... they had ungrudging valour
and a fierce sense of duty’.
(*The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids 1918
Pen and Sword Books Ltd - www.pen-and-sword.co.uk)
Production of the plaques began in December 1918, each one
an individual casting with the name appearing in full. The
British sense of humour christened the plaques Death Pennies
or Widow’s Pennies.
You might wonder, where are all those million-or-so plaques?
Some are in museums or in collections but most must still be
with the families. If you have one you can enter the name on the
search website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
www.cwgc.org/find.war.dead.aspx
where there is information on the dates of death of all
casualties, the cemeteries where they lie, or the places of
commemoration of those with no known graves.
Some plaques are nowadays with collectors, and any bearing
the name of a woman (some 600 were issued for nurses and
service women), or of a VC, can command high prices.
They are occasionally on offer at car boot sales and if you see
one then do pick it up and for a moment think of the man or
woman it represents – one of those from Britain and the
Dominions to fall in that tragic conflict we call The Great War.
And do remember, too, the grieving mothers and wives who
had received these plaques. There would have been more than a
million of them – women who had borne the wartime hardships
at home and brought up families, while fearing for their distant
loved ones fighting on land, sea and in the air.
Acknowledgement to Philip Dutton & The Imperial War Museum
www.iwm.org.uk and also to Herbert G Smart for his 1983 account
Events
Interaction online!
October
Wed 8th Royal Opera House, Thurrock
Inspiration Day
Wed 15th Elgar Museum Worcs
From Stave to Stage
Fri 24th: Glyndebourne
Benjamin Britten’s
Comments from former U3A online course students:
‘Camaraderie, friendship and support.’
‘A chance to interact and discuss with
other people from all parts of the country.’
‘A comment from another member can start a train
of thought that opens a whole line of inquiry.’
Interactive online courses for U3A members are
continuing in accessible tutor-led format.
Unlike many other courses, group size allows
real discussion without being swamped.
Next batch due to start mid-autumn
Details on www.steve-lee.co.uk/CourseIntro.aspx
(website of our computer guru
Steve Lee of Wells U3A - not U3A National Office)
Any problems email Steve on [email protected]
or coordinator Val Bannister Bridgwater U3A
[email protected]
ore than 800 entries were received and the first prize of
£250 was awarded to Mr Edward Carter Preston of
Sandon Studios Society, Liverpool. His winning circular design
comprised the figure of Britannia, robed and helmeted, holding
a laurel wreath and supporting a trident with a male lion in the
foreground.
On either side of Britannia’s shoulders there was a dolphin,
representing Britain’s sea-power. The required words of
dedication bordered half of the plaque, and the artist’s initials
appeared by the lion’s right forepaw. At the foot of the design
there was a small depiction of a lion slaying an eagle, which
represented the destruction of the Central Powers.
To accompany each plaque sent to the next-of-kin there was
to be a letter from the King, together with a Memorial Scroll.
The King had taken a close personal interest in the project and
his letter read:
M
I join with my grateful people in
sending you this memorial of a brave life
given for others in the Great War
The wording of the Memorial Scroll created quite a challenge.
To quote from Philip Dutton’s history of the plaques: ‘The
minds of the contemporary literary world were ransacked in an
effort to obtain a satisfactory elegiac formula’. In the event,
though, Dr Montague Rhodes James, Provost of King’s College,
Cambridge was approached and he sent a draft ‘by return of
post!’ His wording reads most movingly:
November
Wed 19th Odeon Covent Garden
Cinderella ballet screening
Wed 26th National Gallery Study Day
Renaissance Gems
Wed 5th Glasgow Theatre
Royal Sing Out
December
Wed 10th The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy
U3A Christmas concert
5
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
WWI Miniatures
WWI 1/12 scale model of the trenches
Jo Keys
Bedford U3A
T
he decision to
commemorate
WWI in its 100th
anniversary year was an easy decision.
We are one of the few Miniatures Groups
in U3A nationally, and felt we could
produce something unique with a local
flavour because of the history of our
Bedfordshire Regiment. We also felt the
amount of research necessary would
teach us a lot about the war and provide
other people with a three dimensional
flavour of what it was like.
Three questions: what do we model,
what area and what date?
The first question was easy: the
trenches are usually foremost in people’s
mind when they think of WWI so they
were an obvious choice.
The area took a bit more thought but
then research revealed that our
Bedfordshire Regiment served near
Ypres. One member won a VC for his
bravery defending his trench single
handedly during a gas attack.
The question of date was difficult. Our
budget is small so we couldn’t get
everything historically accurate. It was
decided to give a more general
representation. Some things in our
trenches would be from the early part and
some from later. This gave us room for
manoeuvre and stop arguments about:
‘that wouldn’t have been there then, etc’.
For example: our research revealed
that the ‘Brodie’ tin helmet was patented
in 1915 and didn’t appear on general
issue until 1916, but lots of photographs
of WWI show them, so a few are
included.
Hours were spent in front of computer
screens doing research. Lots of museums
and re-enactment societies were visited.
Gradually we built up a ‘bible’ of
photographs and information and then
work started. Photography was in its
infancy during WWI so each picture that
showed what we wanted was a treasure
and an invaluable source.
We were careful to weed out the
pictures of models, sketches or art work
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
and use only actual photographs for
authenticity.
The purpose of the group is to
manufacture the things we show and
purchase as little as possible, so we set to
work with a load of scrap polystyrene,
old newspapers and glue.
Our research revealed the layout of
trenches during the war and it became
obvious that the horizontal scale would
be impossible because there were
hundreds of yards between the front
trenches and the rear trenches.
The plan was condensed from front to
back and a section of a typical
arrangement was crammed with as much
as we could on to our 6ft x 2ft baseboard.
An officer’s dugout was required – as
you might have seen in Blackadder Goes
Forth, which was constructed by Gill and
set a high standard for the rest of us.
Some amount of realism was required,
therefore latrines were included and I’ll
leave you to imagine the depths of
realism we argued about over that.
The soldiers had to be fed and the field
kitchen played a vital role in trench life,
so that was included, which gave us a
chance to re-use vegetables from an
earlier model of an allotment.
The area of our section of the trenches
included ‘Hill 60’ which was an
ignominious lump of spoil from the
building of a railway line. But it was 60
metres high in a flat landscape and
became strategically important. It
changed sides five times during the war.
The important thing was that it was
also included in the Allies idea of
undermining the enemy defences with
tunnels packed with explosive.
Our model has a mine tunnel but not to
a scale depth – they went down 40 feet or
more. The officer’s dugout and mine
were constructed in the side of the model
to show that they were underground.
We built a zigzag front line trench, a
couple of communication trenches and
then populated them with our hand-made
soldiers. There are 49 soldiers performing different duties.
Because we were trying to represent a
flavour of what is was like, photographs
were studied and various scenes picked
6
to be represented in our model.
Everything was manufactured from
scrap items picked up around the house,
from wooden coffee stirrers, to giant
Lego, cocktail sticks and a TV coaxial
aerial plug.
We made rats, a canary and a pigeon
but baulked at making a horse. We made
a 13-pounder artillery piece and its
ammunition limber out of an old metal
wind chime and various bits of wire,
cocktail sticks and cardboard.
We worked on the project for nine
months and it has been rewarding,
entertaining and so satisfying. The
biggest plus is what we learnt about
WWI from our research. It wasn’t all
mud and gore and time spent in the front
line trench was less than we thought
because the troops regularly rotated.
The group is blessed with the presence
of a pedantic precision engineer so things
had to be just so – within the constraints
of hand tools and available materials.
The members of our group are Gill
Kilby, Jackie Horn, Sheila Davenport,
Roy Davenport who sadly passed away
during the making of this project, Joyce
Pauley, Jo Keys and Chris Fordham.
cont...
Arundel History
Ann Burrough : Arun East U3A
A
History Study Day was organised in June with a guide
at Arundel Castle and the volunteer walking tour guide
for Arundel Museum Society.
Arundel is rich in history with plenty to see and the day began
with a walking tour of the town, taking in the former Port area,
Mount Pleasant (formerly Poor House Hill), the Roman
Catholic Cathedral, Parish Church, and Blackfriars Priory.
Members were given a guided tour of the Town Museum
where they viewed the development of Arundel as a busy port;
the flora and fauna of the River Arun; the lives of Arundel
people during Victorian times and two world wars; town trades,
industries and agriculture; the history of the castle and Dukes of
Norfolk; and the story of the Castle Stables.
The museum was purpose-built and opened just a year ago. It
is a stunning building which is an impressive blend of the new
and the old. It was made possible with a Heritage Lottery grant
and enormous support from museum society members, other
local organisations and individuals.
It is self-supporting, run by a charitable trust with the time
and dedication of a large body of volunteers. Some U3A
members have assisted with the museum’s living history project
interviewing local people about their lives and memories.
After lunch members visited Arundel Castle, the seat of the
18th Duke of Norfolk whose ancestors have lived there since
the 16th century. The Castle was built by the first Earl of
Arundel, Roger de Montgomery, a kinsman of William The
Conqueror in 1067 but has been largely rebuilt in more recent
times following extensive damage during and after the English
Civil War in the 17th century.
It is a scheduled ancient monument and a grade I listed
building. Members were given an insight into the history of the
family and their participation in events in English history.
Most readers will be familiar with the 3rd Duke who arranged
the marriages of his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Katherine
Howard, to King Henry VIII, and the 4th Duke whose
association with Mary Queen of Scots cost him his head but
there was more to tell. Members were also shown wonderful
paintings, furniture and artefacts that also make up the history
of this building.
It was a rewarding day for the participants and the organiser
who is always happy to share her knowledge with others. If
enough interest is shown, another day may be organised next
year inviting members from nearby U3As.
7
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
The latest acquisitions
from manager Susan Radford
T
he Resource Centre has a large collection of History
material and many items relate to the themes of this
issue. Local history is not an area much covered by
commercial DVDs but we have a section relating to cities in a
Through the Ages series: Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London’s
East End, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Tyneside.
There are also DVDs of other towns and cities: Bath,
Blackburn, Glasgow, Chesterfield, Derby, Durham, Gloucester,
Halifax, Leeds, Leicester, Newcastle, Southport, Stafford,
Stoke-on-Trent, Warwick, and York.
Several are in a series The Past In Pictures and cover recent
history. We have a DVD, Yesterday’s Country Village, a general
look at English village life from 1900-1960. Villages around
Britain are visited through interviews, photographs, rare archive
footage and stunning modern film. Based on the popular book
of the same title, this is a treasury of scenes and faces from a
rustic world that has almost vanished.
For Military History, our collection spans wars and conflicts
from ancient times to the 20th century. The centenary of the
First World War has produced some new releases and we have
recently added Gallipoli-the Frontline Experience and
Armistice-the End Game of World War I.
We also have Empire’s Shield-the Royal Navy in the First
World War, which is a 1919 RN documentary recently released.
Our stock ranges in time from The Spartans, the Trojan War,
and Hannibal & the Punic Wars, through the Dark Ages-The
Viking Invasion of Wessex 878 AD into medieval times.
We have something on the Battle of Hastings, The Crusades,
the Battle of Bannockburn, the Wars of the Roses, and The
Spanish Armada. We have a DVD on the English Civil War, one
on Oliver Cromwell and we have some new DVDs on various
historical battles such as Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Marston
Moor, Edgehill, and Naseby.
We cover the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean, Zulu and Boer
Wars, the American Revolution and Civil War, and into the 20th
century with the two World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, and a
new DVD on India-The Struggle for Independence.
We don’t have a lot of requests for military history but we are
open to suggestions from groups for additional stock if there is
enough interest. Please contact us for our History list or browse
our online catalogue.
Other new History titles include: Britannia, the Great
Elizabethan Journey by Nicholas Crane; Dark Ages-an Age of
Light; and Natural History Museum Alive by David
Attenborough, where CGI and cutting-edge science combine to
bring the museum’s long-extinct inhabitants back to life.
In other subjects, we continue to add new stock. Ballet: A
Christmas Carol; A Midsummer Night’s Dream;
Chroma/Infra/Limen; Ivan the Terrible; Jewels; La Dame aux
Camelias; Notre-Dame de Paris; and The Stone Flower.
Opera: Bethrothal In A Monastery; Fedora; The Gambler;
La Wally; Le Rossignol; Marcella; Mose in Egitto; and The
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
First Emperor by Tan Dun, director of the film Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This was commissioned by the MET
in the mid-1990s and was one of the most highly anticipated
cultural events of the 2006-07 Metropolitan Opera season.
The First Emperor combines the expressive power of
traditional ancient Chinese singing with the long musical
lines of Italian Opera.
In other music we have DVDs such as The Book of
Madrigals; Sacred Music, and Sacred Music-A Christmas
History as well as films about Maria Callas, Elgar, Chet Baker
and Bob Dylan.
There are a few new DVDs on Architecture: Daniel Libeskind
– Welcome to the 21st Century; Norman Foster; Renzo Piano
and a short one called A World of Architecture.
Art acquisitions include: Art of the Western Frontier;
Botticelli’s Drawings for the Divine Comedy; Edward
Burtynsky-Manufactured landscapes; Masterpieces of the
Hermitage Museum-The Vast Sculpture Collection; Kurt
Schwitters; Pierre Soulages; and What is Beauty?.
Other additions: Forks Over Knives, examining the claims
about diet and disease; Star Suckers, an expose of the celebrity
obsessed media; and We Steal Secrets-The Story of Wikileaks.
Full details of all DVDs can be found on our online catalogue.
As ever please note that our material is provided for
educational use in U3A groups and not for personal use or
entertainment and is only for loan, not for sale.
Susan Radford
Resource Centre Manager
The Third Age Trust
19 East Street, Bromley, Kent BR 1QE
Tel: 020 8315 0199
[email protected]
Open Mon-Thurs 9.30am-4pm
8
Priscilla Macpherson: Joint SLP Coordinator London Region
[email protected]
T
he London region coordinators are lucky to have on the
doorstep so many museums and similar institutions
which support a buoyant SLP programme. In the first
half of 2014 some 65 U3A members participated in seven
projects of varying sizes and topics, and four new projects have
been announced for the last quarter.
By April 2014, five projects had been completed. In SW
London, members of five U3As who work together on SLPs
and led by Sue Leigh (Wandsworth) looked at celebrated SW
Londoners through the ages and published a booklet Who Do
You Think They Were? for sale to local U3As.
This was an inter-U3A collaboration without an institutional
partner, yet the print run of 300 books is selling well to
members of the U3As involved in the project.
In SE London I led a group for Bexley Heritage Trust
researching the personal stories of the 200 GIs who were
stationed at Hall Place, Bexley as part of the Allied codebreaking effort, Project Ultra during WWII.
The material we found, including loans of photos and
memorabilia from families of those GIs, as well as written and
oral histories, will be included in a six-month exhibition at the
museum starting on 13 September 2014.
A project at Fenton House, a National Trust property, (leader:
Ella Marks) finished with a presentation of new information
about connoisseurs who had made donations to the House. The
findings will be used on the website and in room guides.
Two of our projects were based around research which will
benefit new museums financed from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
A group of ten led by Alan Clayden researched Hidden
Heroes of the Postal Service for inclusion in future exhibitions
at the new Post Office Museum (the third project with the PO).
At Bethlem Royal Hospital Museum twelve people led by Jo
Walters investigated medical objects from the archives which
will go on display in their new museum space. Both museums
are scheduled to open in 2016.
Starting in April, we ran projects at the Peace Pledge Union
(PPU) and the Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL). In the
first, a group led by Dee Kushlick-Williams researched personal
stories of some of the thousands of people listed in the PPU’s
archives as Conscientious Objectors in WWI and gave a
presentation to members.
For our a second collaboration with RPSL, a technically
minded group led by Paul Tritton researched a famous stamp
forger and his printing press. The project finished with a display
which will run for at least three months at the Society’s HQ in
WWI and a follow-on project is planned.
Our partner institutions have professed themselves happy
with our work. Thanks are due to the participants and especially
to our leaders for their contribution to the SLP programme.
Projects at the Museum of London Archives (LAARC) and
the British Museum, will be starting in September. Both involve
object research and community engagement and have been
initiated by Jennifer Anning (renewing a dormant link with the
BM) and new Joint Coordinator Linda Crook who has been
involved with seven out of the eight projects with LAARC.
There will also be a second project at the Langdon Down
Centre, Twickenham on the history of institutions in London
and Home Counties working with people with learning
difficulties. This will be the third project organised by South
West London U3As.
For 2015, we are in discussions with Avery Hill Archives
(Eltham), South London Theatre (West Norwood), Wiener
Library (Bloomsbury), and Oakhill Community Centre
(Surbiton). There are indications too, of interest in new ‘local’
projects amongst some South London U3As – watch this space.
My wish list for the next 12 months would be to run some
new outdoor and craft-based projects. Please send me your
ideas and contacts!
Hall Place, Bexley
Bethlem Royal Hospital Museum
9
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Pat Wilbud
Brecon U3A
A Shared Learning Project
B
recon U3A meets every week with a talk in the morning
and Special Interest Groups meetings in the afternoon.
Towards the end of 2012 our programme organiser
asked me if the Family History Special Interest Group would
consider doing a presentation for the centenary of the start of
WWI. I took the request to the next Family History meeting.
It was suggested we provide a brief biography of the Brecon
men who fell in WWI who were named on the town’s memorial.
There is little detail available – the memorial gives only initials
and surname. We hoped that the outcome could be shared with
local churches, schools and museums.
Our group comprises keen family historians who have been
researching for a number of years and are familiar with the
various Family History websites, as well as new and less
experienced members. Of the group only two were born and
grew up in Brecon. It was agreed that one of these members
should lead the project.
We began by photographing the town memorial and plaques
in the two churches and the two senior schools, and copying the
names. Both senior schools were interested and helpful – the
students undertook some photography for us. We provided them
with information of the names appearing on their plaques.
The names were divided between the group members. All
worked hard using verifiable sources, census records and other
documents including old newspapers. We also learnt from one
another as our research progressed. It became apparent that not
all the names were on the memorials. We started with 119 men
and at present we have more than 150 names.
Most of the missing names came from the Commonwealth
War Graves Commission website where you can search by
certain criteria. So a search for ‘World War One fallen from
Brecon’ showed quite a few names.
One name that was shown as born in Brecon also showed his
address as ‘Punds of Brecon’ this turned out to be an area in
Shetland. He was named after the sheep that were brought from
the Brecon Beacons and cross bred!
One member researched the causes of WWI and quickly
discovered that it was complicated. The assassination of the
Archduke was only the trigger.
The project grew and to make the information available to the
local churches, schools and museums we decided to produce a
booklet and subsequently agreed to develop a website where the
information may be accessed.
To meet the cost we were awarded grants by the Heritage
Lottery Fund; Gwanwyn Arts Festival; Age Concern Wales; and
Brecon Town Council. Following the publicity of our grant
success we were contacted by relations of two men buried in
Brecon Cemetery. The men died after the war from wounds or
illness from the war period and are included in the War Graves
Register. This led to a meeting and the interviewing of relations
living in Brecon.
We had also been in contact with other groups. One was
researching Welsh International Rugby Union players who had
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
died in WWI. They told us of a
Brecon man who had played in the
first International Rugby Union match
in 1881.
We discovered that his father had
been a vicar in Brecon and that the
player had lived in Brecon for a
number of years as a boy before
leaving and going into the 7th Royal
Fusiliers. He was killed in action in
1915 aged 59.
Our presentation was made to
W E Hardwick
members of Brecon U3A on 7 Nov
Australian
Army
2013. We explained our research and
illustrated our talk with biographies
and photos of some of the men who
represented the Royal Navy, the Royal
Flying Corps, the Australian Army
and the British Army including three
brothers who had died within three
months of one another in Mesopotamia.
Since we began, interest in our
project has grown. We have shared
our project with South Wales and
Severnside Network who have an
article on the Wales U3A website.
R A Mayberry
We have further expanded by
Royal Flying Corps
sharing our project with Powys
County Council who is looking at
memorials of WWI. In addition we
shared stand space at an exhibition at
the Senydd.
We have also shared our methods of
research with Local History Groups
from two other towns in Powys, and
with the Library of Wales who were
gathering WWI material.
We in turn have received advice on
the production of our booklet from
Hay Authors who had previously
produced a booklet for their town.
Cyril John Hardwick
We were thrilled on 28 February HMS Indefatigable
2014 when our project was declared
the winner of Age Cymru Awards in the Gwanwyn category:
‘For exceptional contribution to the delivery of Age Cymru’s
Gwanwyn Festival of arts for older people’.
This summer we spoke about our research at the open
meeting of Brecon Local & Family History Society. When we
set out on this project we had no idea that it would develop in
such exciting and unexpected ways.
It has been a rewarding experience and one that we
recommend to others.
10
Dee Kushlick-Williams
North London U3A
Conscientious Objectors
The men and women who said NO in WWI
E
arlier this year the U3A was contacted by
Ben Copsey from the Peace Pledge
Union (www.ppu.org.uk) to ask if we
would be interested in working with the organisation on a
Shared Learning Project researching the stories behind
Conscientious Objectors (COs) living in London during WWI.
A group of 12 was drawn from nine U3As in London. The
members had a range of experience including some with a
family member who was a CO in either WWI or WWII.
Ben gave us names of COs in our area. He was hoping to fill
out some of the back-stories behind their lives. There were two
main sources of information, the National Archives at Kew and
our newspapers.
The National Archives provided valuable information about
tribunals and their outcomes. Accompanying documents gave
insights into the motivations of the COs but were frustrating in
their lack of information about what happened after sentencing
or about their lives after the war.
In local archive libraries we found details about how COs
were perceived through the way tribunals were reported in the
press. Much background was found about several COs who
were members of the Non Combatant Corps of the army.
Members of the group attended the CO commemoration day
on 15 May in Tavistock Square where surviving family
members of COs in WWI spoke movingly about their relatives.
This provided the content for a short audio-visual presentation
on COs at our presentation at the end of the project.
As we proceeded a number of themes started to emerge and,
in addition to researching individuals, members of the group
focused on specific areas that interested them.
The reporting of the tribunals identified differences even
within a local area. Some gave a factual report without anyone
named. Others provided paragraphs with sensational subtitles
such as A Goodmayes Conscientious Objector – the Easy Way
Out of the Firing Line (Ilford Guardian). Another report in the
same paper records the dialogue at a hearing of Ernest Eyres
(prisoner) at Stratford Petty Sessions:
Ernest Eyres: I am a humanitarian.
Mr Carter: What’s that?
Eyres: I am opposed to inflicting pain on any being.
Mr Carter: Did you hold these views before the war?
Eyres: Yes. I was offered non-combatant service.
Mr Carter: Do you eat meat?
Eyres: Yes, a little.
Mr Carter: You can’t eat meat without inflicting pain on animals.
Eyres: All humanitarians are not vegetarians.
Mr Carter: You are clearly a fraud. You will be fined 40s. and
handed over to the military.
A bakery which provided employment for COs and frequently
sought exemption for its employees was the Bermondsey
Labour Co-operative Bakery which was opened in July 1914 by
Kier Hardie and Ramsey MacDonald. Among its employees
was a concert pianist, a concert flautist and a stained glass artist.
Another strand explored was the role of some of the nonestablished churches. The Quakers are renowned for their
pacifist stance and members were COs although some would
not use their membership to support their application for
A Shared Learning Project
Project members outside the PPU office
exemption from conscription under the Military Service Act.
A number of COs who were Alternativists joined the Friends
Ambulance Unit and its role was looked at in some detail.
Reports were found of two meetings held at Devonshire
House, the former central offices of the Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers), and meetings at the Brotherhood Church in
Hackney. Members of this church advocated peaceful
opposition to the war and the building was a venue for anti-war
meetings which other organisations refused to accommodate.
Among the groups to hold meetings was the No Conscription
Fellowship where speakers included Sylvia Pankhurst and
Clifford Allen. Some of these were broken up by violent prowar groups often with the protection of the police. By 1917
meetings were abandoned due to the damage to the building.
Late on in the project it became apparent that a route needing
exploration was the role of women in supporting the anti-war
movements. One group of women opposed to the war had been
politically active before the war in the Suffrage Movement
which until the declaration of war campaigned against it but
then felt a patriotic need to support their country.
This caused a split in the movement. Those who opposed the
war joined the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom. Some became involved in the No Conscription
Fellowship, often taking on key roles.
Some went to prison. There were also non-political women
who simply supported COs and went to prison for their stance,
the most famous being Alice Wheeldon.
As we came to the end of the project the group members felt
we had just started on our exploration of the topic. We felt better
informed about Conscientious Objectors and there was a wish
to continue with our research and maintain contact with the
PPU. Interest in the topic was demonstrated by the large number
of people who joined us for our end of SLP presentation.
11
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Roger Smith Project Coordinator
Blackwater U3A & SMGWA Volunteer
A Shared Learning Project
T
hree years ago it
was thought that
the skills of local
Essex U3A members could be used to
benefit Stow Maries Great War
Aerodrome (SMGWA). The aerodrome
is unique. It is the only surviving Great
War aerodrome with its original brick
buildings still standing as the RAF left
them in March 1919.
SMGWA was built in 1916 as the
home for B Flight of 37 Squadron (Home
Defence) at Stow Maries, ten miles east
of Chelmsford. The Squadron was
formed as part of the eastern defences of
London from the German Air Services
Zeppelin air ships and Gotha bombers.
After the RAF left, the aerodrome
returned to farm land. The farmer utilised
the buildings and in this way they
survived although they were altered to
suit his needs. Now English Heritage has
recognised the historic importance of the
site by awarding it a 2* listing, regardless
of condition.
In 2009 an area of 100 acres,
comprising the aerodrome and some
surrounding fields, ceased to be part of
the farm. Under new private owners, an
ambitious project was started to restore
the buildings as nearly as possible to
their 1918 appearance.
In 2011 I thought that if a suitable
Shared Learning Project could be
identified it would be of interest to local
U3As and could be beneficial to
SMGWA. There was an excellent
response to the invitation to members
and after a brief explanation as to what
we were trying to achieve, a discussion
was held and ideas put forward for
possible projects.
Someone proposed creating a series of
tapestries depicting the different stages
of the aerodrome’s history which would
be placed in the proposed on site chapel.
The idea was enthusiastically received
and Deirdre Courtenay of South
Woodham Ferrers U3A volunteered to
manage the project.
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
The project team with the embroidered scenes (photo: Dave Davis)
(Since that first meeting I have been
told off several times, because it is not a
tapestry but an embroidery incorporating
many techniques!)
Embroiderers with the necessary skills
had to be recruited, or if they didn’t have
these skills, they had to be convinced that
they could learn them. At the same time
the detailed designs of each panel had to
be agreed.
We drafted in Chris Miles from South
Woodham Ferrers U3A as our designer
and the designs were soon agreed and
then ‘translated’ into patterns for our
embroiderers. Work commenced on two
panels: 37 Squadron at war, and the
Aerodrome as it is now.
On completion of the two panels the
project was ended but they still had to be
framed, and an ‘unveiling’ by a suitable
person had to be agreed.
The first Flight Commander at Stow
Maries was Lt Claude Ridley who is
featured prominently on one of the
panels. Lt Ridley’s daughter and
grandson agreed to unveil the panels in
the presence of those who worked on the
project, with their families and friends.
I admire the dedication, skills and
tenacity of those who took part in this
project. The panels are hung in the
restaurant area and they are being viewed
by visitors coming specially to the
aerodrome to see them.
12
In the longer term, the plan is to hang
the panels in a chapel on site but this has
yet to be constructed. Those who worked
on the embroideries certainly think that
the effort was worthwhile. You only have
to look at the end product to realise the
aerodrome is now the proud keeper of
two wonderfully embroidered scenes.
The embroiderers said they had
enjoyed the experience and had learnt
new skills which they are now putting to
use in other projects.
At the initial meeting it was also
agreed that other U3A members would
work on another project which involved
the production of a book of walks using
the aerodrome as the start and finish
point including a suitable coffee stop.
This project was led by Peter Holmes
who was assisted by Roger Wilson, both
members of the Blackwater U3A. My
thanks go to them and their team for
researching five walks and publishing
them in an attractive illustrated booklet.
Copies will be available later in the year.
Would I do it again? Yes! We may have
pushed at the boundaries of what is
permissible in a Shared Learning Project
because of the complexity of the topics
being covered. Mistakes were made
along the way but we learnt from them
and enjoyed ourselves no end!
SMGWA: www.fosma.co.uk
www.stowmaries.com
Ian Philpott:
Whitecliffs U3A (Dover Deal and Sandwich)
T
he title of this work, The Birth of the RAF
may seem a little dramatic but there is a
reason. The threat posed by German
Gotha bombers in attacking targets in South East England in
1917, increased the urgency to combine Britain’s two air
services, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval
Air Service into one new service.
Secondly, no sooner had hostilities ceased in 1918 than the
Army and the Navy saw no need for the extravagance of an Air
Ministry in times of austerity and demanded the return of their
aeroplanes. In that case the RAF would have been stillborn had
it not been for the intervention of Winston Churchill.
The Gotha threat brought to a head the necessity to form a
unified air service under an Air Ministry. The government was,
by 1917, already well advanced in bringing about the RAF.
The work of the Joint Air Board came about following the
realisation that there had to be one air service to make decisions
that would be binding on the Admiralty and the War Office to
prevent waste and duplication and to make rapid decisions
regarding the output of aircraft and aero engines.
If the threat posed to the south east of England in 1917 by
German Gotha bombers had been eliminated, or at least
severely limited at that time, the creation of the RAF might well
have been deferred until after the war when the urgency would
have diminished.
There were so many civilian casualties in Folkestone in just
one raid that questions were asked in the House of Commons
about the inability of the air defences to prevent these raids.
RFC squadrons were being diverted from their duties on the
Western Front to stiffen up the air defences of the London area.
No 56 Squadron for example, was relocated to Bekesbourne just
outside Canterbury but the pilots kicked their heels for a
fortnight before being returned to Flanders.
As soon as they had gone the Gotha raids resumed. The
Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Field
Marshal Haig, was losing his aeroplanes at a time not of his
choosing. Tension was rising between him and the Committee
of Imperial Defence. Prime Minister Lloyd George was obliged
to call upon a member of the War Cabinet General Jan Smuts,
to find a solution to the problem.
The General came up with the solution that everything that
flew must belong to one service – an air service. The Smuts
Report was translated into legislation and a third service, the
Royal Air Force came into existence on 1 April 1918.
This was no mean achievement in the middle of a war. There
was a major Gotha raid in May 1918 but by that time the air
defences were much improved and the losses of Gothas was so
high that the raids on British airspace ceased. But by that time
the RAF was already in existence. Had the success against the
Gothas been achieved in say, late 1917, it might have been a
different story.
The Royal Air Force was a fusing of two services, the Royal
Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). This is
the history of the development of these two services in the
period leading up to the outbreak of the Great War and their
employment on operations.
The new RAF was therefore a product of those experiences.
This included the calibre and operational experience of those
The story of ‘what might have beens’
Sopwith Camel
who would occupy the top posts; the quality of the staff officers,
aircrews and ground crews; and the design and efficiency of the
aeroplanes which became the property of the Air Ministry.
Perhaps one of the most surprising turn of events was the
leading role played by the RNAS in strategic bombing, from the
outbreak of the war and well before Air Marshal Trenchard
commanded the Independent Bombing Force in France in the
summer of 1918.
But then again the RAF V bombers which were designed with
nuclear weapon capability during the Cold War, were replaced
by submarine-launched Polaris missiles. We may say that
strategic bombing started and finished as the responsibility of
the Royal Navy, but such a statement could spark a furious
argument so I will leave that for others to judge.
13
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Sully Remembers 1914-1918
Kathy Beach : Sully U3A
S
ully is a coastal village a few miles
west of Cardiff. In its church St John
The Baptist there is a stained glass
window and a Memorial Tablet dedicated to eight men of the
parish who lost their lives in the Great War. Sully U3A Local
History Group members decided to build on previous research
carried out by a villager on the dead men.
Agreement on the use of the earlier research was sought and
confirmed. A basic sweep of freely available information to the
public online, and from libraries, schools and the record office
was made to ascertain how easy it would be to gather
information. A visit to the church graveyard provided evidence
of another two casualties of the war.
A proposal was put to Sully U3A committee to produce a
20/26 page booklet providing information on the casualties.
This would include support from the Photography Group, a
school competition, upkeep/restoration of the graveyard,
proposed expenditure and funding.
The committee agreed – sharing the cost of design and
printing with a villager who has a small printing firm. Also, as
part of making links with the wider community of Sully, the
committee agreed to fund book token prizes, and a donation to
school funds as part of a school competition.
The hard work began. Information was collected, an appeal
put in the local paper, and collaboration set up between parties
in Sully U3A and in the village: the school, church, community
council, and a local printer.
A picture of each individual on the Memorial Tablet emerged.
However where knowledge about a person and/or his
experience was missing an interpretation of the wider context in
general was used.
There are no negative observations about an individual –
rather the pictures are part of the impact that war has on people.
The use of imperial weights and measures throughout the
booklet is in keeping with the era.
The graveyard provided evidence of not two but three other
casualties of the war. As time went by it became obvious that
the number of the pages in the booklet would increase. The
committee was kept up to date on all aspects of the project and
agreed to underwrite the additional expenditure.
The booklet contains a preface and thanks; an introduction to
the village just before the war; stories of the casualties in
chronological order by date of death; a brief description of the
medals of the Great War; and the winning entry of Sully
Primary School’s Design a Medal competition. It ensures that
Sully’s casualties are recorded for posterity – their names, who
they were, when, where and how they died.
Various Sully U3A members assisted and supported the
project by pooling knowledge, researching, giving feedback on
the content, providing photographs and proofreading the final
booklet before printing. Members also judged the school
competition, designed and printed the winning certificates, and
visited the school to award the prizes and certificates.
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Committee members l-r: Dai Jones, Jean Bispham, Gill Mathias
Jeff Bryant, Kathy Beach, Ginny Golding, Sue Colman
Mandy Best and winners of Design a Medal competition
On a beautiful sunny Thursday morning a group of the
competition winners, some of their teachers and parents visited
the church. The new rector explained why the stained glass
window and Memorial Tablet honoured those who died in the
Great War before taking the children out to the graveyard to see
the graves. The children planted poppy seeds before being taken
to the community hall for squash and biscuits.
As an offshoot from the project, the rector and church
wardens are making contact with a member’s relative to utilise
the use of their employer’s scheme Charity in the Community
Day to clear the overgrown graveyard. A local military historian
has contacted Sully U3A and the church in respect of funding
the restoration of the graveyard. An Australian descendant of a
family who lost three sons in the Great War, has made contact
with us and is thrilled with the project.
The 40-page booklet is on sale for £5 with proceeds being
split between The British Legion and the upkeep of the
churchyard. Queries to: [email protected]
14
Local History
Ivor Manley : Farnborough U3A
I
lead a group in Farnborough U3A called
‘Local Studies’. The aim is to study
villages and locations, and events
industrial or social, that have taken place locally so as to learn
about our local history.
Discussion of a particular topic is followed by a visit to the
site. It is possible to dig below the surface of places we are
familiar with and uncover aspects of our local history that are
not always obvious.
A few examples will illustrate the approach.
We talked about and then visited Odiham twice. On one visit
we walked around King John’s Castle. King John is said to have
stayed here in 1215 on his way to Runnymede to sign the
Magna Carta. The castle as it is today was not completed until
a little later, but there had previously been a hunting lodge on
the site in which King John may well have stayed.
Today the ruin stands beside the Basingstoke Canal which we
have also studied (together with the Wey Navigation, one of the
earliest modifications of an English river to make it navigable).
The canal runs through the now-blocked Greywell Tunnel on
its way to Basingstoke. The tunnel is said to have the largest
colony of bats in the south of England.
The village of Odiham with its interesting old buildings was
also visited. The church has some features dating back to the
13th century, and two graves of French prisoners captured
during the Napoleonic Wars, who were ‘imprisoned’ nearby.
Close to the church is a Pest House built about 1622 where
travellers and even locals were lodged in case they had the
plague. Such Pest Houses were common but only a few of them
have survived. In front of the church at Odiham sits the local
stocks for the punishment of evil doers.
We studied an extensive industrial activity that became
important locally. During the late 16th and 17th centuries, an
astonishing range of pottery vessels was produced on the
Surrey/Hampshire border, and in the area of Cove in particular.
At the end of the 15th century, the previously dominant coarse
borderware was phased out in favour of fine, green-glazed,
white earthenware drinking vessels. For the next 150 years the
Surrey/Hampshire border area was the most common source of
all pottery used in London.
The Civil War in our area was discussed and the significance
of such sites as Farnham Castle. A visit to Old Basing, which
came under siege during the Civil War, was revealing, not just
about the siege but also the more general history of the site.
The Roman presence was celebrated during a visit to
Silchester and a walk along what remains of the Roman Walls.
Silchester was an iron age centre for the Atrebates tribe but
became an important Roman Town, Calleva Atrebatum.
The village of Albury was discussed and visited. Here we
found the old village church replaced by a new church a mile or
so away because it and the village around it were too close to
the Manor House for the comfort of the Lords of the Manor.
The church still exists in a preserved state with its memorial
chapel to the Drummond family designed in part by Pugin.
King John’s Castle at Odiham
Duke of Wellington statue at Aldershot
Not far away is the village of Shere, again with interesting old
buildings and an ancient church. This has an interesting
chamber built into the wall with a squint view of the altar in
which a Christine Carpenter was entombed alive as an
Anchorite in the 14th century.
We researched and visited Alton and became acquainted with
its history and with Sweet Fanny Adams, a young girl who in
1867 was brutally murdered by a solicitors clerk, thus
originating the saying ‘Sweet FA’ which is used to this day.
We live close to the military camp at Aldershot so we studied
the Victorian origin of the camp and how the garrison has
developed. We visited the Prince Consort’s Library founded by
Prince Albert to contribute to the education of soldiers.
We discussed the much-loved Wellington Statue, erected to
celebrate the Duke’s contribution to our military and political
history. We learnt how this was moved to its present site
(delivered in pieces by Pickfords!) from London’s Hyde Park
corner where its size was thought to be a traffic hazard.
I hope these examples illustrate the aim of this group. Its work
overlaps to some extent with groups devoted to History,
Military and Social History, and Industrial Archaeology – all
studied within Farnborough U3A. To bring together all these
threads by studying a U3A’s locality seems to me to be
worthwhile and I commend the approach to other U3As.
15
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
W
okingham is one of the few
U3As locally which has a
military history group. A few
years ago, the only other military history
group I could locate in our area was at
Farnham. While this situation may have
changed, I think we are still thin on the
ground.
Our Military History Group has been
on the go since 1997. In the beginning,
the group met in members’ homes, the
host usually being the member who gave
the day’s presentation. As a self-help
group, only on rare occasions do we have
speakers from outside the group.
The group meets on the third Thursday
afternoon of every month and we now
have approaching 40 members – all
attend more or less regularly. As numbers
increased we had to move locations and
currently meet in one of the rooms at the
Wokingham Community Centre.
During the winter months we have
talks on subjects selected by the
members, with outside visits to sites of
historical interest on one or two months
in the height of summer.
The monthly talks are almost
invariably given by group members, who
choose the topic, research it and then
present it.
Military
History
Don Macdonald : Wokingham U3A
This approach is more suitable to the
time we have to meet and meeting
frequency. We have discussed and
discarded having a more formal or
academic approach such as say, an indepth study of the Wars of the Roses or
researching the 100 Years War.
With 2½-hour meetings once a month
such an approach would drive the
members crazy. Hence the current
system which provides a variety of
interests and gives any member of the
group the chance to present his or her
favourite topic.
Some of our lady members have
involved themselves in collaborative
ventures, where two or more have joined
forces to research and present a
particular topic. Chief among these was a
presentation on Military Medicine
Through the Ages, which started with the
Romans, passed through the events of the
Our Ancestors At War
Pat Styles: Beverley U3A
B
everley U3A Family History
Group took on a project to
research their ancestors’ WWI
experiences. Their stories formed part of
a display at the July monthly meeting.
Five members made contributions with
a display of stories of their family’s
involvement in the war effort.
Virginia Dunhill related the story of her
grandfather George Holdsworth who at
the age of 19 enlisted in the 8th West
Yorkshire Regiment. He served for nearly
three years and fought in France where he
was badly injured by shrapnel, which led
to him being discharged, no longer
physically fit for war service.
Jenny Barber told the story of her great
uncle Harry Burton who was employed as
a groom for the local hunt and who
enlisted in 1916 aged 32. He was called
up to the Royal Berkshire Regiment in
June 1916. However he suffered from a
previous knee injury and was considered
‘unlikely to be an efficient soldier’
(medically unfit).
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Ann Scruton recounted the stories of
her ancestors – two Cockney brothers.
Henry Radford was a professional soldier
in the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire
Regiment, and Albert Radford who had
joined the Royal Marines in 1899. At the
outbreak of WWI Henry was mobilised
and spent three years as a Training
Sergeant at Beverley Barracks. His
brother Albert continued in the service
during the War. He served at Gallipoli,
was badly wounded, died in June 1915
and was buried at sea.
Ann also wrote about her late
husband’s great uncles Walter and Ernest
Sowen. Walter joined the 2nd Battalion
the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1914. He
was killed in action in May 1915 aged 24
and his body was never recovered. His
name is listed at the Menin Gate
Memorial. Ernest had emigrated to
Canada and in January 1918 he joined the
72nd Battalion British Columbia
Regiment. He was posted to France and
was killed on 2 September 1918 aged 25
and is buried in Wancourt Cemetery.
16
Visit to Bletchley Park
Crimean War and finished with Sir
Archibald Mclndoe’s pioneering work on
plastic surgery.
Another such subject was Women in
Wartime and most recently, a pen portrait
of important military figures from the
past. Any members of the group may
adopt this approach.
Some possible topics for future
meetings include:
The English Civil War: the battle of
Reading and the siege of Oxford. (Some
of these might include visits.)
The Spanish Civil War
The Birth of the Blitz
The War of 1812
The Indian Mutiny
The Boxer Rising
Pat Styles wrote about how her great
grandparents had ten children – seven
boys and three girls. Five of the brothers,
which included her grandfather George
Stead, enlisted at the start of the War.
Four enlisted in the King’s Own
Yorkshire Light Infantry and one joined
the Army Supply Corps. The eldest
brother John William was killed in action
in March 1917 and is buried in Baurains
Cemetery. After his death his widow
received her late husband’s last wage
with the cost of the blanket to bury his
body deducted from the pay. George was
wounded twice but he and the remaining
brothers survived to the end of the war.
Roy Dyson told how his grandfather
worked at the Standard Firework Co in
Huddersfield. When war broke out the
factory obtained contracts for filling
Mills grenades and from 1914 to 1918
made 11,000,000 items.
The Family History Group was invited
by East Riding Archives to share their
research project at the Great War Local
History Forum in Beverley Treasure
House on 4 August as part of the First
World War Commemorations.
WWI Battlefields
Judith Bogie & Roger Frost : SW Herts U3A
The Brooding Soldier at Vancouver Corner
O
n 23 April 2014, 35 U3A members (SW Herts, Watford
and Croxley) spent four deeply moving days visiting the
WWI battlefields of Flanders and the Somme.
We travelled by coach covering 1,300km with our superb
guide Andrew Date and driver Martin. These two were the
perfect double act, explaining the shocking conditions and
terrible statistics of organised mass slaughter 100 years ago.
We visited famous monuments to the dead and missing. In
Flanders we went to the Menin Gate in Ypres where 55,000 of
the missing in Flanders from Britain and the Commonwealth are
commemorated. The remainder of the missing 34,000 are
recorded at the nearby cemetery at Tyne Cot. In the Somme we
went to the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval
where 72,000 are commemorated.
Almost all the WWI cemeteries and memorials were
constructed in the decade following the Armistice. However in
2009/10 a new cemetery was created at Fromelles on the Auber
Ridge near Loos. A group of mass graves containing some 250
bodies was excavated. It had been dug by the Germans for those
victims left on their side of the front line – half Australian and
half British.
Thanks to modern DNA technology many of the Australian
victims have been identified. This is because the gene pool in
Australia is quite small. A similar identification process was not
possible for the British victims.
There are only two Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Cemeteries still open for burials and neither could accommodate
the number of victims, so a new cemetery was created for them.
Close by in the Australian Memorial Park containing some
4,000 unidentified Australian victims of the Battle of Fromelles,
is the statue of Sgt Simon Fraser known as the ‘Cobbers’ statue.
Fraser and his company rescued 250 wounded.
here are different types of cemeteries. The most familiar are
the serried rows of headstones which evoke sorrow, pity and
horror. Another style is the mass burial typified by the German
Cemetery at Langemarck where the ornamental flower bed
covers 25,000 victims.
Some cemeteries are built where the victims fell in battle such
as the Gordon cemetery built in a circle around the support
trench, and the Devonshire Trench Cemetery where the victims
were buried in the trench where they died.
The poet Lt William Noel Hodgson MC was among the
casualties in the Devonshire Trench. His poem Before Action
T
was published two days before his death. The cemetery gate
bears the inscription: ‘The Devonshires held this trench, the
Devonshires hold it still’.
So many times we read Rudyard Kipling’s citation on the
grave stones: ‘A Soldier of the Great War, known unto God’.
Both he and Prime Minister Herbert Asquith were among those
who lost sons.
Sandra Hunt was surprised by the variety of nationalities
represented, not just the British, Australians, Canadians, New
Zealanders and the South Africans but also the Chinese and
Indians. Close by is the Portuguese Cemetery at Vimy Ridge
where there is a beautiful memorial to the Canadian casualties.
There is also a memorial to Moroccan troops.
As well as the cemeteries there are memorials. Among these is
the poignant Albertina (an award made by King Albert of
Belgium after the war) sited at Essex Farm Cemetery near Ypres.
This commemorates Col John McCrae, a Canadian surgeon who
composed ‘In Flanders Field the Poppies grow’ following the
death of a close friend at his dressing station close to the site of
Essex Farm Cemetery.
Col McCrae survived his time at the Front but died of
pneumonia in 1918. Another memorial, on the site of the first
gas attack in 1915 on Canadian troops at ‘Vancouver Corner’, is
known as the ‘Brooding Soldier’ and it sums up the horror of
that attack and its tragic consequences.
In the cemetery at Carnoy in the Somme Roger Reuss found a
grave which had a leather football upon it. The football had
recently been placed there, along with a tiny wooden cross with
a photograph of the grave’s occupant Captain WP Nevill.
This commemorates Capt Nevill of the Royal East Surrey
Regiment who bought footballs for each of his platoons and
offered a prize for the first ball to reach a German trench. Sadly
Capt Nevill did not survive to award his prize but two of the
balls were recovered.
Five members of the group found the graves of their family
members and took photographs of their resting places including
Ron Bradshaw who identified the grave of his great-uncle. Some
memorials such as Newfoundland Park and Hill 60 incorporate
preserved trenches and at Vimy Ridge some of the tunnels dug
to protect the attacking Canadians are open for visits. At Hill 60
it is possible to go down into the trench and get an idea of the
awfulness of the conditions.
No exploration of the Flanders Battlefields would be complete
without a visit to TocH, Talbot House in Poperinghe. This was a
rest centre set up behind the lines by the Rev Tubby Clayton.
During the war it was, and still is, a haven of peace and
tranquillity.
In a five-day period it is impossible to experience every aspect
of these two huge battlefields but the party came back feeling
they had learnt a great deal about WWI and its aftermath and
they would encourage other U3As to follow in their footsteps...
Lest We Forget.
Travel details: [email protected]
17
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Not An Interesting Town...?
Michael Allen : Mansfield U3A
T
hey’ve said this many times of
Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, as indeed
it’s been said of many towns now devoid
of their industrial past and anonymously clad
with factory or warehouse units.
And yet – lift the rug of history and under the
floor boards can be discovered much of interest
that isn’t first seen. Not the ‘History’ of battles and great deeds,
but the small ‘history’ of England through the centuries, the
quiet history of the growth of our nation and its people.
Mansfield U3A’s Local History Group was set up nearly three
years ago. Of course we knew about Mansfield’s recent history
– the coal mines that have disappeared leaving us with nature
reserves and walks on grassed-over spoil heaps; the knitwear or
hosiery factories demolished to build housing estates; and the
unemployment brought about by industrial decline.
Of course we knew about Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood
and his motley crew of outlaws. Some of us even knew that
Sherwood Forest was not a dense woodland, but, as originally
defined in Middle English, a legally defined area of scattered
trees and heathland set aside for the Norman rulers to hunt in.
But did anyone know that amongst the heaths and trees of
Sherwood Forest lay a Viking meeting place, a ‘Thynghowe’,
on the edge of the Danelaw, preserved because it lay in a royal
hunting park? And that Edwinstowe, a nearby village was so
named because King Edwin (or St Edwin as he became) was
buried there? The Trent was the divide between the Kingdoms
of Northumbria and Mercia, and Edwin of Northumbria died in
a battle nearby with the Mercians.
In Plantagenet times Henry II hunted here and built a ‘palace’
at Clipstone. Only a few stones remain but the fenced grounds
occupied several square miles. Richard I hunted here, Edward II
convened a Parliament and King John met with his recalcitrant
lords – a place on the northern border, a place for a ‘parley’ or
‘parlement’ which he held to keep a grasp on his power. It was
a place for Royal pleasure and business for more than 300 years.
Skip the next centuries, skip the sanctuary that Mansfield
offered to dissenting clergy from towns nearby who refused to
sign the 1662 Act of Uniformity, skip the rise of framework
knitting and the Luddite riots, skip the late 19th century coal
boom and home in on Clipstone Camp.
In WWI, Clipstone Camp on the edge of Mansfield was one
of the largest training and holding camps for service men. In the
trenches in Sherwood Forest, 20,000 men at a time were trained
and the camp was a veritable town with a YMCA, cinema, and
social halls.
This was all that was needed, though the more dubious
delights had to be sampled in the town. At the end of the war it
became a huge demobilisation camp but almost all evidence has
now disappeared apart from a few overgrown trenches. Even
the many huts sold as village halls have gone now.
So, a ‘not very interesting town’ turns out to have had a great
deal of interest after all. And no doubt we will discover more in
the future. Like all U3A Local History Groups, we will pull
back the carpet more and more, revealing new insights into our
past to our surprise and pleasure.
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
Clipstone Camp
Images: www.clipstonecamp.co.uk
18
Members of the Northampton U3A group which
studies the First World War decided to undertake
a project to commemorate the 100th Anniversary
of the start of the war on 4 August 2014.
Anne Garraway : Northampton U3A
A
fter considering a range of ideas, the
group decided to write a biography of
each of the 137 men and one woman
listed as buried in Commonwealth War Graves
in the municipal cemetery in Towcester Road,
Northampton.
Of these, 130 are buried in a dedicated section opened in April
1915, and eight are buried either in family graves or outside the
section set aside.
There are also 17 graves relating to the Second World War
when the section was extended to enable these burials. As a
mark of respect we decided to include these in the research.
During our investigation we found that there had been ten
German burials from the First World War and, as this is a period
of international remembrance and reconciliation, we have
included these men.
We also found that there were three Czechoslovakian soldiers
from the Second World War who fought with the Allies, buried
in the Jewish Section of the cemetery and these men have also
been included.
We started with the information downloaded from the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. Each
member of the group then took approximately 12 names from
the list and began their research. We used 29 sources for
personal and military information about each of the soldiers.
Local newspapers were scoured for articles and photographs.
The county archive provided information about some of the
men who spent time in the local workhouses before going to
war. Family history websites and online family trees provided
much personal information and several regimental museums
were contacted to find additional information.
One member of the group volunteered to lead the project.
Others brought to the group special skills such as photography
and military history expertise. Another person drew the
illustrations.
The research was submitted to the leader of the project and
she became editor. Members of the Northampton U3A History
Group proof read a final draft. It was a collaborative project.
What did we find? There are stories of bravery, murder,
drowning, children who spent their young lives in the
workhouse, families where up to three sons were killed, two
cases of father and son deaths, and a tragic romance.
A father and son were killed in the First World War and the
father is buried in Towcester Road Cemetery and the son in
Gaza. In the other case the father died in the First World War
and the son in the Second World War. Both are buried in
Towcester Road Cemetery.
The brother and husband of one woman who died within days
of each other are buried together.
Why such a large number of burials in one cemetery? Two
hospitals in Northampton were designated war hospitals and
during the First World War 188 trains arrived carrying more
than 22,500 casualties.
When a British casualty died in the United Kingdom, the
family had the choice of having the person conveyed to their
home for burial or having them buried where they died. Whilst
many of the British men are from the Northampton area others
came from around the UK.
There are also nine
Australians
and
five
Canadians from the First
World War and one Polish
man, whose story is
extraordinary, from the
Second World War. For a
number of years, to honour
the Australian men, a
ceremony has been held on
the Sunday nearest to
ANZAC day.
The group found it a great
learning experience. We
learnt about the sacrifice of
men and women and their
Ralph Davies
war service.
We also added to our knowledge about movement of troops
through Northampton and the involvement of local people in
the war effort.
The culmination of our research was a book called Stories
Behind The Headstones which can be purchased for £9.99 plus
£2.50 postage and packing from the Northampton U3A.
[email protected]
19
Sources Sept 2014 No 53
The Thiepval Memorial, Somme