Yesterday we went to a small rural village named Stoke St. Gregory which is on the Somerset Levels. I used to come here from the age of 0 until I was in my early 20's. I came to visit my paternal grandparents who lived on a small holding where I remember helping my grandad feeding the hens and collecting the eggs which were still warm, collecting tomatoes in the greenhouse when I was given a paper bag and allowed to gather the tiny little tomatoes which I recall as being treasure all of my own. There was a fruit cage where I used to help my grandfather pick big juicy raspberries as in 2 for the basket and 1 for me! The memories I have of this idyllic phase of my life are warm and full of love. I loved my grandparents but yesterday was about my grandad.
There is a local historian who has done an extraordinary amount of research into young men from Stoke St. Gregory who were touched by World War I. From the names on the war memorial he has discovered where they fought and were killed and also about those who were injured.
My personal story was about Frank Barrington Chedzoy (my grandad). He joined the army in January 1918 and was sent to northern France in April that year. He then fought in the battle of St. Armand and was injured so very badly near a farm at Quenoy. He was gassed and received 3rd degree burns to 60% of his body in fact the left part all the way down. Unable to talk, in shock and with pain controlled by morphine he must have been terriby ill.This meant he was shipped back to UK and spent time in hospital in Bradford and then was taken to Dublin for a long slow recuperation and return to health. He never returned to full health and was unable to ever work however he did use the skills learnt on the first part of his building apprenticeship which had to be interrupted when he went to war. He built the house he shared all his life with my grandmother and where I spent so many happy days of my life. Until yesterday all I had known of his experience of The Great War was that he had been gassed. Yesterday I found out so much of what this young man -my grandad -had experienced when he was only 18.
It was never spoken about and all my father was told as he was growing up ,when he had asked about the war, was the mud.
Thank to this historian I know so much more about how WWI affected my family directly. It has affected me deeply as the wonderful old man, my grandad, kept this secret from all of us except perhaps my grandmother, for the duration of his life.
It has given me so much to think about.
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5 comments:
wow, that is a truly amazing story. my grandpa didn't talk much about the war either, but he was a pilot and he did enjoy telling me stories of how they used gophers for target practice in saskatchewan - he enjoyed telling me that knowing it would get my dander up as an animal lover. he was a trickster in a very loving and teasing way. but i would have loved to know more about that time in his life. fortunately my grandmother is writing a kind of memoir of her life for the family to have once she's gone. i think you're very lucky to have this wonderful historian.
I have to contact this local historian to say how much I have appreciated his research. This information has filled a gap in my family knowledge, a gap I wasn't wholly aware of until now. Poor grandad went through so much pain and we were unaware. Your grandmother's memoirs will be a door into her life how sensible that she is writing them now while she can. My husbands mother has so much locked in her head that we will never know as she has alzheimers and now it is too late.
He must have been a wonderful man and I can understand how learning his whole story must give you much to ponder. The historian must be a wonderful person, too.
welshcakes: I have thought a great deal about grandad in the last 10 days and realise what a wonderful man he was and thanks to Gareth the historian.
sorry to hear it about your mother-in-law. my great-aunt too and i wish it weren't so now that i'm an adult i'm suddenly so much more interested in the 30 years she spent teaching in the far north.
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