370395 A/Sgt Francis G Seddon, 8th London Regt

 

When I interviewed Frank Seddon it was 1986 and he was aged 89 and living on his own in Portslade, Sussex. No service record survives for him but I did record his experiences on my tape recorder.

 

I'm Francis George Seddon, but they always know me as Frank. I was born in June 1897 in Bethnal Green, East London. It's all knocked down now. Before the war I was a telegraph messenger delivering telegrams. I started at the age of fourteen, but of course that's not allowed now.

 

I joined the Territorials on 4th June 1914, seven days before my birthday, and when I finished the war I was a sergeant-instructor when I was an instructor to young soldiers aged eighteen. The reason for that was that over the years the casualties was terrific and we had no fit and able-bodied men to send to France any more and so they had to rely on eighteen year-olds. They were being called up when they were eighteen and there were special battalions throughout the country for them only. Of course, I was only twenty-one myself at the time.

 

I joined the Territorials in the first place because there was one ot two doing it who had that sort of encouragement and some of our inspectors belonged to the Territorials as well. I was young and active then and full of adventure and I fancied the Territorials to go camping you know; there was no signs of war.

 

When war did break out we were going to camp, Eastbourne I think it was. The train got as far as Three Bridges and stopped. Then the rumours started going around and the train went back, shot uis back to London Bridge. We detrained there and marched to our barracks in Bunhill Row with a band playing. When we got there we were paraded and lined up and Colonel Labouchere addressed us. His words were, "The ultimatum to Germany expired at midnight. The Post Office Rifles will be mobilised" and a big cheer went up, I remember that.

 

I was with several friends: William Harfleet, Johnny Harris, Greig Haynes; I can't remember them all now. We was all about the same age and came from the same office as you might say, West Central London.

 

I think I was in number three company and we were a happy crowd, all part-time soldiers who'd joined for a holiday really. We had a big shock when we got to France although the shock don't come till you get to the trenches. Till then, you're singing and marching and full of life."

 

Frank volunteered for service overseas but was held back because he was too young:

 

Like a few others I went to Cuckfield which is near Haywards Heath in Sussex.I was there four or five months and a nice billet it was. I spent Christmas there and blow me, my mother and sister came down to see me, all that way. They was more worried than what I was. We eventually went to France in 1916, about May I think it was.

 

Frank's entry on the British War and Victory medal roll notes that he was overseas between the 27th May 1916 and the 13th October 1916. He remembers that he was wounded on the 7th October and that it was nearly twelve months before he recovered from his wound:

 

I had electric treatment and exercise, all kinds of things. Of course, the nerves were severed in my leg which never really got well. I went back to my battalion and they reckoned I was fit to go out to France again. I didn't go back though because a notice appeared saying they wanted men who would like to go in for drill instructors.

 

Frank never went back to the trenches. He received the British War and Victory Medals and the Territorial Force War Medal. He died in November 1990 at the age of 93.

 

 

 

 

 



33033 Sgt John Brett, 1st Bn, Essex Regiment

Synopsis

John Brett was born in Southminster, Essex on the 22nd March 1891. I met him at an old people's home in Chelmsford in 1982 and conducted a brief interview with him. I later returned with the then curator of the Chelmsford and Essex Museum - David Jones - who conducted a fuller interview. The transcript below is my edited version of the one that is held by the Essex Regiment Museum in Chelmsford.

At no time during either interview, did John Brett reveal his army number and in all likelihood he had forgotten it. A search through birth and death registers confirms that he had no middle name, and this in turn narrows down the possibilities when it comes to looking at medal index cards. There are two John Bretts with Essex Regiment connections: one of these men also served with the Royal Engineers whilst the second man also served with the Labour Corps. There are two J Bretts but both of these men can be ruled out as their numbers do not fall in the range of numbers issued to Essex Regiment recruits in 1915.

My hunch is that John Brett was 33033 Sergeant John Brett, later 615465 Labour Corps. He says in the interview that he spent three Christmases at home. We know he was at home in 1918 and that he joined up in 1915. I think he attested under the Derby Scheme in November or December 1915 and received his notice to join the Essex Regiment in late 1916. His number, 33033, dates to around November that year. And so he spent Christmas 1915, 1916 and 1918 in England, and Christmas 1917 in France.

I took the photo above of John Brett when I first met him in 1982 and he died in Chelmsford in 1988 aged 97.

Interview

Could you tell me where and when you were born Mr Brett?

Southminster, 1891.

And what did your father do?

He worked with his father on a small farm; sort of labouring or doing anything – thatching or any kind of work with his father.

You presumably went to the village school, did you?

Yes

What was that like?

Alright yes, but I’m afraid I didn’t get on too well with the headmaster. He’d got his favourites. There was a family called Hoad. Their father used to train dogs for Sir Daniel Gooch who lived
In the Highlands and they were favourites of Mr Jonser my schoolmaster. I don’t know why he disliked me because I tried. He’d got his favourites and the Hoad family, there were three boys, they were his favourites.

When did you leave school, how old were you, do you remember?

Fourteen, fourteen years.

And did you go to work with your father then or did you go into another trade?

No, unfortunately my father died when I was only eight – so I don’t know. I forget really what I was doing ‘til the war came.

You would have been what, just over twenty, twenty three when war started?

That’s right, yes.

What was – how did you feel about the war? – You’d obviously seen in the papers about the war – what were your feelings about it? – Did you think it was a right war?

I’m against war myself. I don’t believe in wars. Why should we kill each other. If I were to shoot you Mr Jones, or your comrade, I’d be sent to prison – but when the war comes, they give you a rifle – you can shoot anybody, shoot you enemy. But why? Why can’t we all live happy together?

When did you join up and where did you join up?

1915 at Warley – I went to Warley Barracks – there for a day or two. Then I went to Etaples, in France and done my training there.

I see. When you joined up were you on your own or did you go with some friends?

If I remember, I had notice one morning by letter to attend Warley Barracks. I went by myself.

When you got to Warley do you remember, what was it like, what was your impression of the place? Do you remember anything of the uniform you were given or whatever? Did you have a uniform straight away?

Yes, we were given all our kit at Warley before we went overseas.

What Battalion were you in then?

I wasn’t posted at Warley what Battalion I was going to join – but when I was at Etaples. [It would appear that John Brett when to France as a draft for the Essex Regt, was posted to one of the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples, and then subsequently posted as part of a draft to the 1st Essex Regiment.]

Oh, I see. Were most of the men that joined with you at Warley, were they mostly from Essex?
Oh yes. One fellow from Bradwell–on- Sea, name of Copeland . I remember his name; and a lot of Southminster boys; local lads that I knew, got killed in the war. And you think about them now; all those years have passed, but you still think about them.

Do you remember any of their names?

Yes. Jimmy, Jim Thorogood , Harold Bishop, Mr Coote, seven or eight I remember their names, used to be pally with them before they joined up.

What were the conditions like at Warley? Was it a bit rough and ready?

Well it was new wasn’t it you see. If you hadn’t been a soldier it was all fresh, fresh surroundings. Get up early in the morning and you drill and break for dinner and break for tea, you didn’t get much spare time; not to call your own.You were generally on the go.

Was it generally drilling that you did at Warley?

No, as I said to you just now, I did most of my, of my drilling at Etaples, in France.

How did you get from Warley to Etaples?

By boat from Folkestone.

How did you get to Folkestone though? Did you go by train or did you march it?

We went by train.

Ah yes, and when you got to the other side, to France, what – how did you get to Etaples?

Went with hundreds more, by train. Out there the trains, you could get out of the train and run and catch it up before it got very far. Trains were very slow in France – very slow.

What was the morale of the men like? Were they all, you know, sort of ready to fight do you think?

It’s hard to say, hard to say. Individuals, you don’t know what an individual thinks, do you? I don’t know what you think about now.

So when you got to Etaples then, what happened then? What was the training like?

Oh, that was just hell, the training was terrible. ‘Come here! Come here! Go there! Fall in this lot! Fall in that lot! The sergeants and the instructors were very, very thorough, you know. What was their remark? ‘You won’t be able to play with your Grandmother, you’re here to soldier. Come on here! A lot of red tape. Then we, in the training, we used to, we had this rifle and we had a row of bags stuffed with straw, they represented a German. It was about so far, it was off and the sergeant said ‘Now charge’!. So you stick the bayonet into the bag of straw, pushing it in and out, and off you go again as if to say, ‘Well he’s dead.

So you learnt, did you learn, you learnt obviously, to shoot the rifle? You had practice in that too?

Oh yes, I was a very good marksman with a rifle. Sergeant said ‘You’re good, you’re good’. I used to get a bullseye.

Did you get a marksman’s badge in the end?

I don’t think so.

How long were you at Etaples?

It would take me ‘til tomorrow morning, this time, to tell you all my life of France, out in France.
You would really like to know what? Where I went or……

Well yes. Where did you go when you finished training? What happened then?

I was sent with the draft. I was made a Corporal and I went with seventeen other men and myself made eighteen. We were picked to join 1st Battalion, the Essex Regiment. Well we marched one night, it was dark, like a firework display from the enemy, were shelling and bombing. So we got to this, where the Essex were, they were up in the front line at that time. So we went to that place, had some food and went to bed. We hadn’t been to bed about ten minutes before the Sergeant Major said ‘Where’s that draft that just come in’? Fall in! Fall in! And we had to fall in . Our job was to take petrol, petrol cans full of water, up the line to the Essex Regiment. That night, a lot of firing going on.

What time of year would that have been? Was it summer or winter or what?

That would be about mid summer.

And what happened after that? You got into the line then, obviously?

Yes, we took that water up, the Sergeant major said ‘You don’t know the way Corporal?’ and I said ‘No, we’ve only just arrived’. So he says that another Corporal had just come from the front line and he’ll have to go back again and take you. So he took me and the seventeen men with the cans of water up to the front line where the Essex Battalion was – and they’d suffered a lot of losses the day before.

Do you remember where that was?

Somewhere on the Somme. We went passed Amiens and Abbeville. Went through those villages up to the line, the front line.

And when you got into the line what was the fighting like? What, trenches presumably?

After we took the water we come back and were there at the base several days and then we were ordered up to the front line again and we were going to relieve the Inniskillens and they’d suffered heavy loss. We relieved them and it was a case of getting in a shell hole or anywhere to get a bit of cover. You see – were shelling that particular spot. Well, were there about a week then we were relieved, relieved and the whole of the Essex Battalion came back to -–I can’t remember where it was – and the morning we were relieved we were going to Freshard [?] At a certain place, he had a machine gun on a corner and he knew we’d be returning that way and the order came along ‘Every man for himself’. ‘Down you go’. Went flat down on the ground because he was firing at that particular place and we lost a lot of men through that particular place. So same as you had to turn Corporation Road and turn into Broomfield Road on that corner, well he had the machine gun laid on that corner and you got to pass. You had to go on your hands and knees. Get past it somehow.

Conditions obviously were very bad then. What was the supply situation like? Did you get enough food and so on – water?

It reminded me the other day. We had lovely corned beef here, and chips and peas. Corned beef – I’d never seen so much corned beef wasted. It was piled up, boxes and boxes and boxes, lovely corned beef. That was a sort of home made trench to protect you from the bullets, these lovely, lovely tins of bully beef. They’d cost no end of money now to buy. But we was always glad to get a small loaf. That was perhaps about six men for a small loaf. So you got a little piece of bread, you didn’t get much. Then we always had the hard biscuits. Something like sort of dog biscuits. Hard, hard. But you used to be glad of anything if you were hungry.

Was the food supply better behind the line, when you were relieved? Was that reasonably good?

Oh yes, that was better then.

What, did they have canteens or mobile canteens or something?

Shall I join in? While I was up there I got a septic foot. So the doctor says ‘How long has it been like that?’ I said about six weeks. He says’ Alright’ he says, ‘Get out of it’. So he marked me further down the line, down to base. So there was a lot went down. Some were on stretchers, others were hobbling on one leg, and we went down and we stayed on a camp and during the night I heard a train – engine on a train. Choo-choo-choo-choo. I wished it had of stopped for us. That stopped and somebody shouted ‘Those that can get on the train, go across and get on. ‘Cos there were stretcher cases – they couldn’t go. They had to be took on the stretcher but I – sorry – I’d got the one bad foot but I hobbled on one leg and got on the train. When we all got on I said to the sister, only female we’ve seen for weeks and weeks. I said ‘Where we going?’ She sais ‘You’re going to Le Havre’. So we went to Le Havre, to the Le Havre hospital. I was there three weeks and got this leg, got it healed up. Hot formentations and it got better. After a time I was sent back to Etaples, where I had come from.

What were the hospitals like?

Ah, lovely. They got to heal well, then I was stopped for another week and help with the floors . We used to polish the floors. The hospital’s a lovely place there . Then after three weeks I was sent to a convalescent camp at Le Havre. That was another nice place . Where fellas got fit again after flu and gunshot wounds.

There was presumably no gas at that time ?

No gas, no. Really and truly I could go on telling you but it wouldn’t be interesting. I went back to Etaples so…so when we got back the Sergeant Major says ‘If you’ve got anything to report, report when you see the Medical Officer in the morning. So there was a lot of us – 20 or 30 -went in front of the doctor. He passed some and some he wouldn’t pass. He said ‘ You feeling all right?’ I said ‘Not too good’. The old ticker was not too good. He says ‘Alright you can stop here at Etaples for another week until you get better.

What happened to you after you, you were better again? What happened then?

I went to this convalescent camp and while I was there the Sergeant Major came along and said ‘Brett’ he says ‘I’ve got a job for you’. I said ‘Yes Sir?’ So he says ‘There’s about two or three thousand people want to get across to Blighty, to England – but it was so rough, the weather was so rough. And he said to me he said ‘I want you to go over to that marquee, pick what men you want and make up the bunks and get tea ready for them. But stop here the night’. Because it was so rough for them to come across the water to England. That’s where they were bound for. So prevention was better than cure. So they were there three or four days alright. So I went back again. I was still at Etaples. Sergeant Major said ‘Ah, Brett, I’ve been looking for you.’ He says, ‘Where you been to?’ Well I said ‘ I been here’. So he says ‘I’ve got another job for you’. So I says ‘Right Sir’. So he said ‘Corporal, somebody has done his time in the service’. He was an old soldier and after he’d done his time he would enlist again for the present war’. So he was due to go back to England and he was in charge of one of the dining huts, D Company. There was A,B,C and D – 4 dining huts. So he says ‘I want you to take charge of D Company dining hall. ‘Cos the other Corporal was going home I took his place.

What did that mean for you? What did you have to do?

Order the food or…… Sunday I take two men and go to the cook houses, draw our breakfast, perhaps rashers of bacon, and we used to cut the bread. Get the breakfast all ready, same like dinner, same like tea. I was there six months. I was fortunate.

So that would take you into 1916, wouldn’t it?

Oh yes, well beyond that.

What happened to you after you, after the dining …..?

While I was there I got to know the officer and the colonel.

Who were they? Do you remember?

I don’t know their names now. One was a Scots doctor and the Colonel, I don’t know what he was. They used to come round every Saturday morning inspection. Every man had to be on parade , or he used to come round and inspect the dining hall see if they were all right. The tables had to be scrubbed, soap and water, made look nice, place kept nice. He used to come round. I’ll blow my own trumpet, he said its very clean and neat. So while I was there I got pally with the young lad who worked in the Officers’ quarters, he used to do the Colonel’s cooking. He used to have flowers on the table so when I went they were nearly dead he used to throw away, he used to give them to me . So I used to have flowers ….. on the table. He used to come round and said ‘Very, very nice’

And, to cut a long story short one fella, I’m sorry to say , he got put in the glass house. I felt sorry for him but it was his own fault. See there was six men sit down to a table – 3 each side – had to be. There were six pieces of bread. Well you know what men are, they went for the biggest, biggest piece and there was one small piece left. One fella said ‘I ain’t gonna sit there’ he said ‘and have that lousy bit of bread’. I said ‘You’ll sit there. I tell you to sit there’. ‘I’m not going to sit there’. ‘Alright, I’ll get you another piece of bread’. He sit on another table. So when the officer come round – ‘Orderly Officer, any complaints’? So this fella got up and said ‘Yes Sir’, he said ‘I only had a small piece of bread’. So I explained to the Sergeant Major who was with the officer, I said ‘He refused to obey my instruction.’ I said ‘If he‘d stopped there I’d got another piece of bread’. I said ‘He wouldn’t stop, he sat on the next table what he shouldn’t have done and he got cross’. So the Sergeant Major said ‘Alright’ he said, ‘Fall in two men’. And they took him off and he got three months in the glass house. A silly thing to do , he could have took my advice and sit down at that table. See and he got rude to the Sergeant major, see and the Sergeant Major said ‘Alright, fall in two men’ and marched him off to the guardroom and the last I heard of him he had three months in the glass house. So I felt sorry but there you are. I’m afraid I’m not much help, am I?

Yes you are. What, do you remember what happened next? Where did you go from Etaples? What happened to you after that?

When I went to back to Etaples – before I left that camp – I saw a Scotch doctor and said ‘You ought to rest’ he said ‘You’ve been scrubbing them tables and made your heart bad’. He said ‘There’s thousands of little muscles all round there and you’ve strained them’ he said, ‘You’ve worked them too hard’. So he says ‘I’m going to put you in the rest centre for a fortnight’. So I went in a rest centre. Well the n after that I went back to Etaples. So I saw a Belgian doctor, I think he was. He said ‘ You feel alright?’ I said ‘ Excepting a pain here’. He said ‘ How much do you smoke?’ I said ‘ A packet a day’. He said ‘ You’re a bloody liar’, he says ‘ just look at you hands, you smoke more than your issue’. So to cut a long story short, I went on parade the next morning. I saw this doctor and he said ‘Come to me in a fortnight’s time. Leave off cigarettes, it’ll never get better’.

So I smoked not so much . So I went back again. He wouldn’t pass me. He put me down for the medical travelling board. That was we’ll say eight or nine would be at Chelmsford and we’d have to march say Maldon to Chelmsford for this exam. So there was one poor fella, he had to walk and had an old piece of wood for a walking stick, went in front of me, he could hardly walk. So he went in, so the doctor said ‘ What’s the matter with you? What have you got that stick for? And he kicked the stick away from him and he fell down. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was a sick man. Some used to play on it. See, the doctor didn’t know whether they were genuine cases or not. What you call ‘swinging the lead’. But to cut a long story short, the next morning we went back to the base at Etaples. So the Sergeant major, when we were on parade, so he says ‘ Corporal Brett, George Smith, Tommy brown and George – somebody else – four of us, out of about one hundred men were marked P.B. That was Permanent Base. Then I was transferred to a Prisoner of war Camp, where prisoners came in. I was sent to Abbeville. I was there about a year. I was made up a Sergeant there and the prisoners used to come, thousands used to come some days. Another day there was only a few. So you might as well say I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t see, that wasn’t in the trenches. I was fortunate in that way.

I went to ‘Abbeville’, that was the main cage for the prisoners. They were taken prisoner; the Germans were taken prisoners. We’d dealt with thousands there, and the interpreter was a German. I used to call him ‘Floose’ – Valouse, but I said ‘Floose, I want a thousand men on parade now and they have got to go to Le Havre’. So he used to parade all the men then he would be with me and we would count off a thousand. Then we used to have them at the main gate ready to march off. There was the guard, about twenty men, used to take them to the station to go by train to Le Havre. I must tell you about this ‘Floose’, he was German. ‘One night’, he said ‘ I was on reconnaissance work ‘ he said, ‘And somehow in mistake I got into one of your trenches. Yes’, he said ‘I was very nearly shot’ he says. ‘I got in – where am I? – I must be in the wrong trenches’. So he walked a little further and there was our fella on duty looking across ‘no man’s land’ so he had the presence of mind, he says ‘Wake up! Wake up! He hit him on the back. He says ‘Here comes the officer!’ and he turned round he says, and walked out the same way as I come in. That was his tale. It was true.

You said you were at the prison camp for about a year. Did that take you up to the end of the war?

Yes, yes.

When were you demobbed then?

In Southminster I was the first one to be demobbed.

Really?

Because I was home. I was lucky, I had three Christmas, Christmases at home.

Oh, you’d had leave then, you were able to get home?

Yes, yes. So I was on leave in nineteen hundred and eighteen. I was home….1918 on leave and the Armistice was signed. So the soldiers who were on leave like me, they grumbled, said why should we go back to France, then ship us back there, ship us back when we are already in England. So I used to see the paper and it came out one morning – all men that are home on leave-no need to go back to France.

So you were able to stay there, stay at home then?

At that time I knew a farmer in Kent, so I explained to him. So he said ‘I’ll give you a job’. Said ‘You don’t want to go back do you anymore’? So I said ‘No, I don’t want to go back, I’m already in England. Why go back to France then ship me back again’. See, so it came up in the daily paper, if you’d got a job to go to, report to the Crystal palace. So I borrowed a bicycle and cycled to the Crystal Palace and got me discharge.

One question you asked of me; while I was at the main cage with the prisoners of war the Americans wanted two thousand for Bordeaux. The Americans were putting up big warehouses. They’d come into the war and they wanted these big warehouses made. We’d lend them two thousand prisoners and we went up to Bordeaux. So I got up to Bordeaux and had several months up there. These prisoners, we used to post sentries all round where they were at work. The guard, the British guard, these prisoners would be putting these big warehouses up. The Americans were coming into the war.

A/Capt John Potterton Tucker, 2nd Devonshire Regiment

Synopsis

John Potterton Tucker was another of the men I met whilst I was studying at Loughborough University in the 1980s. He was born in Torquay on 30th November 1894 and was an apprentice engineer when war broke out. He enlisted on 9th September 1914 with the 1st Life Guards (army number 3118) and was later commissioned in the Devonshire Regiment.

I interviewed John Tucker on 5th July 1984 and he died in Leicester in October 1993 at the ripe old age of 98.

Interview

PN:
Why did you join up in 1914?

JT:
Well the war broke out on 4th August 1914 and for some time everybody was saying the war would be over in five minutes so quite a lot of us thought it wasn’t much point in joining up. But then there was a few of these white feathers started flying about for people who hadn’t joined up so I thought to myself, before I get one of those I’ll join up. So I joined up on the 9th September 1914. I went to the recruiting office which was in the old town hall of Torquay and the sergeant, when he measured me – I was over six foot – said, “I’d like you to go to The Life Guards.” So we were sent up to Exeter and then we signed all the papers necessary, took the King’s Shilling and went on to Knightsbridge barracks.

PN:
Did you join up with friends?

JT:
No I just went on my own. I was the only chap from Torquay in that batch that went to The Lifeguards. We did our usual training, learning how to ride, sword rill and what not. There was still guards going on in Whitehall and I was appointed as a batman to the corporal-major in charge of the guard that went to Whitehall guard on guardroom duty. But I didn’t actually go on mounted guard, I was just a batman to the corporal-major in charge. Our training depended on being able to ride well and after we’d passed in the riding school we used to go out on Rotten Row and ride up and down, doing charges and things like that. Then when we were able to tackle that alright without falling off we went to St James’ Park and used to do charging and general manoeuvres. All our training was done in London but we went down to Rainham for our rifle training and I got a marksman’s badge for that.

In June 1915 we were drafted to France [medal index card indicates he arrived in France on 18th June] and directly we got to France there was news that the Canadians had suffered a very major loss due to the Germans mounting their first gas attack in the Ypres salient. We were sent up right up to relieve them. We had makeshift gas masks, we had pads which we used to tie over our mouth and when they got dry you piddled on them and that was that. Then of course they gradually developed the gas mask and they had those hoods they used to pull over your head with a little perspex panel in them. Gradually they got it down to the cylinder type gas masks. Well anyhow, during that first do all we had was this little bit of a pad which we tied over our nose and our mouth.

Then of course we came out. We were a mounted regiment and were not really trained for infantry work but it was an emergency so we went traight up. Then of course we did working parties going up at night putting up barbed wire in the Ypres salient and we used to kip out at night in the Ypres ramparts.

Haig was a cavalryman but it wasn’t really a cavalryman’s war. You see you’d got these trenches and you were entrenched. The Ypres salient was more or less a salient for I don’t know how many years.

When we came out for a rest we used to go down to a little village called Poperinghe and at Poperinghe, Talbot House had been set up. Bishop Talbot had set up a little place where fellas could go and pray and that sort of thing and it was named after him. They called it Toc H because the T for Talbot was Toc in the signaller’s language. Tubby Clayton was the minister in charge there and over the door, as you went in, it said “Abandon rank all ye who enter here.” You could go in there and you could kneel and you’d probably be kneeling beside a General. As far as you were concerned it didn’t matter if you were the lowliest of privates or the top notch of the General Staff, you were all one while you were in there.

We were out on exercise once, quite back out of the line, I can’t remember the name of the village, and one of the officers said he’d like to promote me and give me a rank in The Guards. He said, “We want you to take a commission” but he said you couldn’t get a commission in The Life Guards because they were all posh: lords and ladies; lord this and sir that. The officers in The Life Guards were nearly all millionaires I think so they arranged for me to be transferred to The East Surreys and that was at the time just before the Somme operation.

I was transferred to The East Surreys and the first thing I did was to go into the Somme operation.[1] They laid down this barrage and that was the first time the tanks were used as far as I know. They got these tanks in a row and a whole heap of them got stuck. I thought they were very ineffective.

There were two villages and one of them was called Morval but I can’t remember the other one.[2] Anyhow, in that advance we lost a tremendous number of men and I got wounded there. I got shrapnel in the leg and I was sent down to a hospital at Le Treport.[3] It was a hotel converted to a hospital in the seaside town of Le Treport. Then I went back and re-joined The East Surreys and I got wounded again by a rifle grenade when we were in a sap-head at Hulloch. We were in this sap-head and the rifle grenade came through the corrugated iron over the sap-head and I got wounded. I was smothered with bits all over my body, tiny bits.

PN:
Did you stay in France?

JT:
I didn’t come home for either. I stayed in France. The first time I was wounded I got inoculated, I came out in blisters all over the place and they sent me down to a hospital in Etaples which was for ordinary sickness. They said I’d got scabies. Well I hadn’t got scabies it was the result of this anti tetnus. When they gave me the next lot after this rifle grenade wound I came out again like it and I said, “look, don’t you tell me I’ve got scabies this time, it’s something to do with this anti tetnus you’re giving me. I think I’m allergic to it.” They agreed that it did affect some people and so they agreed it did catch some people like that and they didn’t send me down but kept me until I was well.

PN:
Had you become an officer at this stage?

JT:
I was then a corporal and then I was sent on to England and I joined the number 13 Officer Cadet Battalion at Newmarket[4] and I passed out of my training there and then I was commissioned to the 2nd Devons.

PN:
What battalion of The East Surreys were you?

JT:
I can’t remember which of The East Surreys it was.

We then went out again and were in action in several places including Armentieres. The last major action I was in was Passchendaele. I was appointed there as an acting captain because the captain was ill. I was in charge of a company in Passchendaele and there I captured the first German soldier since I’d been out there. We were taking the rum ration round and were going round the shell holes [because] there were no connected trenches. It was very difficult to tell where you were because there were half a dozen of you in one shell hole and two or three in another and so on. Your company was spread out in these blooming shell holes and they were half full of water. I’d got this rum ration in a sandbag over my shoulder and I was going round with the company sergeant-major. We were dishing out the rum and finding people in these shell holes and giving them a couple of tablespoons each and we saw this blooming German soldier and he’d got a rifle. I’d got a revolver but course, it was on my left side and I’d got this rum jar over my right shoulder so all I did was I slung this ruddy rum jar at him. It knocked him over and of course I took his rifle and took him prisoner. That was the only prisoner I ever took right through the war.

After Passchendaele I’d been in France then for about three years and they were having an exchange of officers and I came on the list because I’d had this three years service and they were sending some officers out who’d been spending most of their time in England. So I came home and they attached me to the Norfolk Yeomanry. When I was in the Norfolk Yeomanry the commanding officer, the colonel, sent for me and he said, “I understand you’re a bombing expert.” I said, “I’ve thrown plenty and I’ve chucked a few about in my time in France.” He said he wanted a bombing instructor but I hadn’t passed out as an instructor and I didn’t think I could take classes. So he rang p brigade headquarters and they said they had a fella in the Suffolk Yeomanry who was an expert so I swapped with him. So I was then sent to the Suffolk Yeomanry. The commanding officer there was a different type altogether. He said, “Look we’re playing at soldiers. I’ll attach you to Captain Kirby and his company and if we want you we’ll send for you.” This was at Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Then we were drafted to Ireland because the Sinn Fein business was on and we were all mounted on bicycles. We went to Ireland on the bicycles and carried out a few manoeuvres and while we were there we got a manoeuvre call and the captain was told that the Germans had landed on the east coast of Galloway and that we must go and repel them and capture them if we could. Well he got this call about six in the morning and he said, “We can’t go off without any breakfast.” I said, “Damn it, you don’t have to wait for breakfast you ought to be getting off right away.” However, he insisted and I thought, well on your own head be it. We stayed for breakfast and when we got to the east coast of Galloway a fella walked into our barracks who was pretending to be one of these Germans. He’d taken over our barracks and we were in Galloway looking for these Germans. It was only a practice do but course, when it was all over the brigadier-general had a conference and really tore a strip off this captain who’s kept us back for breakfast.

Anyhow, then I was sent back again. I’d had my little bit of a spree and my little bit of rest and I was sent back to France in September 1918 having had three months in England and Ireland. We were just on the advance and we finished up the Armistice in France but I can’t remember the name of the village we finished up in. It was a three lettered word.

When the Armistice was over we settled down and started having fun. The local ladies started organizing dances and we were going dancing and having a real good time. I was in this regular regiment again, the 2nd Devons, and immediately the Armistice was signed it was decided that this regular regiment should go back to England to be re-formed to go out to India for posting.

Well as I was a temporary officer I was not in that lot and I was sent to what was known as a composite regiment. It was made up of all these officers who were in the various regiments and we were there in this composite regiment waiting to be either de-mobilized or despatched somewhere else and I was one of the unfortunate ones who got despatched to Egypt. So when I got to Egypt I was still in the 2nd Devons but the regiment – after it was all sorted out, the composite regiment – was known as the 2nd London Regiment. I was given the job of camp adjutant at Sidi Bish outside Alexandria. Sidi Bish was a camp but it was no longer a camp. All that was there was the camp adjutant’s house and attached to it was three Egyptian civilian servants. One was to do the cooking, one had to do the housework and one had to look after the camp adjutant’s horses; there were two of them. Three servants and two horses and all I had to do was ride around with these blooming horses, exercising [them] and in the evening I used to go down to Alexandria and report to the camp commandant who was Colonel Coates of Coates the cotton people of Paisley. He was living it up there, I think he was a millionaire the way he was living it up. Well I got stuck there until April 1920 when I was sent home and de-mobilized. I got home to Liverpool and I was de-mobilized on the 4th of the 4th 1920. I was in the army from September ’14 to April ’20.

PN:
What was you life like as a private soldier?

JT:
Well you just mucked in anyhow. You slept rough, you ate rough but we were all pals, we all made the best of it you know. We had our fun and our gamesand we had some bad times. We had some rum meals at times – hard biscuits and bully beef and nothing else, and some of the trenches were terrible. The conditions at Armentieres were awful. You had these big thigh boots but you were waist high in water. You had these big thigh boots but they were leaking already and directly you put them on and got in the trench they were full of water. They used to send you up a pair of clean socks every day but you’d got an awful job to get these boots off and get your clean socks on, and directly you got them on they were wet through right away.

PN:
Did you ever suffer from Trench Foot?

JT:
No, I was very fortunate. I had a little whiff of gas once. I was in a dug-out and one of these gas shells went over. We’d got these curtains across the entrance of the dug-out to keep the gas out and a chap looked out to see what it was and he got a real lung full of it. He fell back inside the dug-out and some of the gas came in with him so that we got just a whiff of it but nothing serious. We didn’t have to go down for it.

When I was with the Lifeguards the horses were right back in the lines. We had to go up each day in working parties and look after them. When we first went into trenches though, we hadn’t been issued with any horses. Then we came straight out to Le Havre, went up the River Seine to Rouen and we’d no sooner got to Rouen, we hadn’t been sent any horses, when we were sent right up to Ypres to relieve the Canadians.

PN:
There were lots of colonial troops as well weren’t there?

JT:
Yes, there were some Chinese too, Labour Corps chaps. In fact my sister married a fellow who was in charge of the Chinese Labour Camp. He was the son of a missionary, born in China, and when they knew he could speak Chinese, instead of drafting him into one of the fighting regiments they drafted him into being in charge of this Chinese Labour Camp.

PN:
You were in action on the Somme and at Passchendaele. Which was the worst for you?

JT:
I think that Passchendaele was worse than the Somme. We lost more men in the action on the Somme but the conditions were drier and not so bad. But at Passchendaele it was absolute slosh and mud. Terrible. I can’t remember the geography of the place very well but as far as I was concerned I was scared stiff each time and all I was thinking about at Passchendaele was trying to look after my men and keep them in some kind of formation and encourage them. But it’s hopeless on these things. You’ve got to give instructions, you’ve got to be careful that you tell them why you’re doing it and where you’re going and what you’re hoping to do. And then it’s pandemonium and you just have to hope you can get where you can. And the same on the Somme.

I was in the East Surreys on the Somme but it was the same. The officers were trying to keep together but then they suddenly fell out. They were lost or wounded or killed or something. Then you’d have to look for your sergeant to see what you could do and he was probably knocked out and in the end you had to say, hell, and use your own initiative. We lost many men there.

PN:
Did you go over the top then?

JT:
Oh yes, over the top as it was. But after going over the top you were out in no-man’s land for a bit and then you were going over the German trenches. You didn’t know what sort of terrain you were on in the end and of course, you had to keep struggling through barbed wire and Janet wire and all those sort of things. It’s really pandemonium. I don’t think people can adequately explain these things and describe them.

PN:
What sort of thoughts are going through your mind as you are going over?

JT:
All I was thinking about was, I’ve got to go ahead and I hope to God I don’t stop one, and that’s all.

PN:
Did you enter the German trenches?

JT:
Oh yes, in two places such as they were: Passchendaele of course and in the Somme.

PN:
Their trenches were very good weren’t they?

JT:
Oh yes, better than most of ours but of course you didn’t have time to stop and inspect them properly but they always struck me as being a better construction than ours. But of course we were looking at them from the other way round you see; we were looking at the things that we’d got to go over and we thought oh that’s a hell of an obstacle. But when you are in your own trenches you don’t realize it’s such of a hell of an obstacle for them coming this way. So I think that’s why we thought they were better trenches [but] I don’t now whether they were or not but they give that impression.

PN:
I think they were very deep weren’t they?

JT:
Oh they were very deep, oh yes. You had to stand up on the fire step before you could get up, but their fire step, between the fire step and the trench, was much deeper than the fire step in our trench.

We used to get rations up. I used to be in charge, as platoon commander, of the tobacco rations for the platoon and it was all free. That’s the sort of thing you didn’t get in the Second World War but in the First World War we used to get all our tobacco and cigarettes free. It was sent out by subscriptions of some sort. I used to go round and dish this out and no-one wanted tobacco, they all wanted cigarettes. So I decided I wouldn’t have any cigarettes, I’d have the tobacco and sometimes I’fd have as much as nine ounces in a week but of course I couldn’t smoke nine ounces. That was what my free ration was because nobody else wanted it. I got so that sometimes I was knocking back as much as seven ounces in a week – an ounce a day. Then of course when I was demobilized I couldn’t afford that sort of thing.

There was very little you could do to occupy yourself in the trenches and it depended on the condition of the trench. If the conditions of the trench were good and dry you could sit about and play cards. Crown and Anchor was the gambling game. It was a piece of linen with the crown, anchor and the four aces.

PN:
Did you go to the estaminets?

JT:
Oh yes of course we went out there, I’ve been tight many a time. On my twenty first birthday we came out to a Nissen hut just behind the lines and that’s the only time in my life I’ve really got drunk. I can’t remember what happened except that we started off celebrating my twenty first birthday there. All I remember is waking up still with all my kit on and my boots on.

PN:
How much was your pay?

JT:
I’ve got it here somewhere. April ’20 what was I getting then? November pay £23. Oh that’s my gratuity, £142. October pay was £24 and six shillings. July pay was £17 six shillings and six.

PN:
That’s per month is it?

JT:
Yes, per month. £16, fifteen [shillings], £17 six and sixpence, £17 sixteen and sixteen pence.

PN:
This is what the army paid you as an acting captain?

JT:
Yes, towards the end it was. I went from corporal to the OCB, the Officer Cadet Battalion, and then at the Officer Cadet Battalion I got commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant.

PN:
Why were you acting captain there? Had your captain been killed?

JT:
Well I told you, the captain was ill and couldn’t go and I was appointed acting captain because somebody had to command the company going into Passchendaele, we were just going in to Passchendaele. I think he really wasn’t ill, I think he was scared stiff and frightened and went sick. Anyhow h didn’t go into Passchendaele and I had to take the company in.

PN:
Do you remember, in the Passchendaele area, just before the offensive, the Messines mines going up?

JT:
I don’t remember seeing the mines go up but of course there was plenty of talk about it but I didn’t see it. I’ve got a note here confirming I was acting captain. [Reading from a letter] “… a smart, energetic, capable officer, he has always carried out his duties in an efficient manner both as a platoon and company commander. He has previously commanded a company in active operations at Passchendaele.” That’s signed by Lieutenant Colonel Prior, 1919.

PN:
[Reading] At Passchendaele in 1917 there were eight attacks spread over 102 days. In that time the British advanced five miles and lot 400,000 men.

JT:
Of course, those were notes I made at the time but I can’t remember details like that now.

PN:
There wasn’t a trench system as such at Passchendaele was there?

JT:
Oh no, no, it was just shell holes; nothing but shell holes.

PN:
Were you at Arras at all?

JT:
Yes, I was at Arras but I can’t remember details, my memory is not good. I remember seeing the entrances to the tunnels there although I never actually went inside them. You used to see the miners coming up. They fetched miners over from England just to do that. I’m not sure whether they were actually drafted in as soldiers but tey got miners from the mines to do this mining. I can’t remember if they were given uniform or not. The Germans used to do the same thing too. They used to tunnel under these things and then pack in a lot of explosive, run a fuse back or electric charge back and blow the ruddy stuff up right under the German lines. Course, the Germans did the same and blew our lines up in the same way. Vividly I can see in my mind’s eye an entrance to one of those tunnels the miners were making.

There was something phoney going on at that time and we advanced over a lot of filthy mucky stuff. All the trenches were flooded that we occupied. I don’t remember though if it was a secret retirement or whether it was just a manoeuvre because we all played tricks on one another and there were no end of these funny sniper posts stuck up all over the place: imitation trees and thing like that we used to stick up for sniping posts.

We used to spend a lot of ammunition shooting rats too. Lice were a problem as well. At nights when we came out we used to turn our shirts inside out and run the candles along the seams and we used to say we were toasting our visitors.

PN:
Did you ever go to company baths?

JT:
Oh yes, they set up baths in breweries and all sorts of places.

PN:
Were you in France when the Germans started their advance in 1918?

JT:
Well in the 1918 push I’d just got sent back as that Push was stopped and we were going ahead again.

PN:
Did you enjoy life as a captain?

JT:
Well, enjoyed it in a sense that it was nicer than being in the ranks but on the other hand I don’t think anybody could say they enjoyed life in the army in France in operations. After the armistice when they sent me to Egypt I enjoyed that alright but nobody can say they enjoy life as an officer whatever it is because the conditions were horrible when you were in action and they weren’t all that good when you came out for a rest behind the lines.

PN:
Did you ever team up with the French armies?

JT:
Only once. I was liaison office for a little while. I’d done a week’s patrol out in front of Armentieres and after we’d done this patrol I was then sent as a liaison officer with a French artillery group to tell them of the targets that we had been exploiting.

I led a raiding party on the German trenches when I was with the 2nd Devons and there was a chap called Coffee, Corporal Coffee who was in the raising party. He got badly shot up in the legs and couldn’t get back. We didn’t realize he wasn’t back with us until we took a count and when I discovered he was missing we went back to find him. We’d just got over our own trench and there he was lying there. We didn’t have any difficulty in getting him back.

Years after, I was in Torquay when a fellow fell off his bike and sent papers everywhere. I saw he’d only got one arm so I went over to help him pick up these papers and when we got up we looked each other in the face and I recognised him as Corporal Coffee. We hadn’t seen each other all that time.

I never took any additions in weaponry when I went on a raid. You’d got your rifle, you’d got your bayonet, you’d got you revolver. What the hell do you want knuckle dusters for? Some fellas had all sorts of things. Some chaps even used to take those little picks we used to have for digging out the trenches. You were trained to use your rifle and your bayonet and if you were an officer you were trained to use your revolver. It was a poor show if you couldn’t use those things and had to resort to a knuckle duster. In fact I think chaps used to drop their rifles which was the reliable tool and think they could do better with anything they picked up. I’ve seen chaps go over the top with those screw stakes that are used for barbed wire rather than a rifle.

Notes

[1] Tanks were used for the first time on September 15th at the battle of Flers –Courcelette. Six battalions of The East Surrey regiment fought in the 1916 Somme battles but only two were involved in the actions that JT describes. The 12th East Surrey (122nd Bde, 41st Division) was the only East Surrey battalion involved in the Flers attack. However, JT states that he was wounded at Morval. The battle of Morval took place between 25th and 28th September. The 1st East Surrey (95th Bde), 5th Division was the only East Surrey battalion taking part in this offensive and it suffered an estimated 203 casualties, many from German machine gun fire. Somme casualties given in the regimental history number 40 officers and 1,200 other ranks.
[2] Probably Lesboeufs which is slightly to the north of Morval.
[3] Either No 3 General or No 16 General Hospital
[4] The 12th and 13th OCBs were stationed at Newmarket. Courses lasted four months. The system for temporary commissioning from the ranks was introduced in February 1916. [Information from Stand To! Number 68, page 13]

Chelmsford's Old Contemptibles

Chelmsford in Essex, England, is my home town. I was born there and spent most of my life there, and it was in Chelmsford and its surrounding villages that I conducted the majority of my interviews with the veterans of WW1.

The photograph above originally appeared with an article headlined, The Last of the Few, in the Chelmsford & Essex Chronicle on Friday 19th November 1971. The seven Great War veterans, photographed on Remembrance Sunday that year, had just paraded their Old Contemptibles' standard for the last time. The men stressed that they were not disbanding, but with their numbers down to ten, they felt that it was the right time to call time on parading.

I met Stan Brown, pictured far right, ten years after this photograph was taken, and when I met him he was one of two surviving members of the Chelmsford Old Contemptibles' Association. Formed in 1928, at its peak the branch could count over 300. The men of 1914-1918 appearing in this photograph are, from left to right:

Charles (Charlie) Brand, Secretary OCA Chelmsford Branch, aged 82 (formerly M/29770 Army Service Corps)
George Balaam, aged 85 (formerly 8634, 2nd Essex Regiment)
Henry (Harry) A May, President OCA Chelmsford Branch (formerly 967, later 534022, 10th Royal Hussars)
Guy Hobday, aged 77 (formerly 16700 2nd Grenadier Guards)
Arthur Diggens, aged 78 (WW1 service unknown)
Albert George Cass, aged 86 (formerly T/20548 Army Service Corps)
David Stanley Brown, aged 75 (formerly 9732 1st Leicestershire Regiment and 32526 2nd South Staffordshire Regiment)

Service records for Stan Brown (who joined up in 1913) and Albert Cass (who joined up in 1903), survive in the WO 364 (Pension) series at the National Archives. Their records can also be viewed on line via Ancestry.co.uk which is currently offering a FREE 14 day trial.

The Chelmsford OCA wound up as a branch in 1977 and Stan Brown, of whom you can read more by clicking on his name, was the last of the Chelmsford Old Contemptibles to fade away. He died in 1987.

9814 Pte Harry Toplis Bardsley, 18th Manchester Regiment

Harry Bardsley - synopsis

9814 Private Harry Toplis Bardsley served with the 18th (3rd City) Battalion, The Manchester Regiment. He was born on 16th December 1893 and was working as a salesman for William Briggs and Co in Manchester when was was declared. He attested on 4th September 1914 and served virtually throughout the First World War until a bullet in his thigh finished his service in October 1918. By then he'd transferred to the 21st Manchesters and must have been one of only a few original Manchester Pals still in khaki. The photo of him (above), was taken shortly after he joined up in 1914.

Harry was one of the first Great War veterans that I interviewed. I met him in September 1981 and visited him regularly until his death in November 1982. The transcript below is taken from the recording I made in 1981.

1914-1915
I went to The White City; a pleasure ground which they called The White City. It were all in white and they’d got a boating lake and a ballroom and all these kind of things and we were stationed there. The ballroom was partitioned into sections of sixteen, that was a platoon. In this ballroom there was a company there and the sergeant-major, he had his place in the centre by our lights, you see lights was off at half past ten. The sergeant-major used to walk round shouting out to be quiet because some used to snore very loud.

For supper we got meat pies. Well, a lot of us didn’t eat them and over the sergeant-major’s sleeping quarters there was a rack where we used to throw these meat pies. He put wire netting over but that didn’t keep them out so he had to have it boarded up.

So we were there and it was quite good training. Of course, we were all raw. The regimental sergeant-major and all the sergeants and sergeant-jajors were Boer War veterans and had been in the army because it wasn’t that long after the Boer War really. You’d be drilling, the sixteen of you, and he’d come round and he had a terrific voice. If he shouted, you could hear him a couple of hundred yards away. He’d come out behind some trees and scare the life out of us. Anyway, it knocked us into shape.

There was a kind of winter gardens which was used as a lecture hall; it was a huge place. Well at night, chaps would be sitting there with girls in this place in darkness and one night the colonel and regimental sergeant-major came in and switched all the lights on. Of course, there was a bit of trouble about that.

Anyway, we moved from there to Grantham, to Belton Park which was the home of Lord Brownlow. It was a huge park. Well, there were four thousand of us there in huts. [1] It was a huge place and it was quite pleasant there. I got in trouble there with the sergeant-major. He said something and I made a rude noise and he had me up in the Company Office. Well the captain asked the sergeant what the charge was. He replied that I’d made a rude noise. He said, well what was the noise? Well he couldn’t do it, he kept trying but he couldn’t. Anyway they didn’t proceed and I got let off but the sergeant-major had it in for me after that.

Well then they asked if there was anyone that could ride as they were forming a transport section. Well I could ride; I used to go to a farm so I put in for this transport. So we had to go to Grantham station to collect these mules which were coming direct from the Argentine; they were wild. We were supposed to get two alike to form a pair and bring them back. Well, you couldn’t get these things. They were running wild round Belton Park. So for a fortnight we had rodeos, going round after these things, rounding them up. Well I got two and you had to get one that would ride., you had to train it. None of them would ride. If you got close to they’d kick. Anyway, after about ten days I could sit on it and shortly after that, after we got these things, we went on a journey of about seven miles, not with a saddle but a saddle blanket. Well imagine. Fourteen miles! When I got back I couldn’t walk, I was so sore. Well I managed to get down to Grantham and I went to a chemist’s shop and bought a tin of Vaseline and borrasic powder. Eventually you hardened up. For years and years you were riding about four to six hours a day so you got very hard and you could sit on a razor and not feel it.

And then from there we did a lot of training there. We went round about meeting other battalions and brigades and then we went to Salisbury Plain. I was stationed near Stonehenge; I could see Stonehenge from my hut.

We went out one night [and] you had to follow your way by stars. You were taken so far away and I’d got a half a limber, two mules (riding one) and a brakesman and you had to follow these stars to get back to where you’d started from you see. Well, I took the wrong turn and when it came dawn I was miles away. Anyway, I managed to get back. We also had mock battles there. You took your mules out of the limber and you gave one to your brakesman to lead; they were carrying ammunition. I gave him the one that could have a pack saddle and the one I took which was the one that was carrying the empty cartridge cases, started bucking and took off. I had it on a rein you know. I wasn’t riding, it took off. I went right through the front line to the enemy and still holding on. Anyway, I got in a bit of bother about that. I should have let it go. Anyway, we trained quite well there and eventually we went to France in November 1915.

On the 8th November 1915 we went to Boulogne and were there a day or two and then went up the line the following day to Pont Remy. We got up there and we were in tents when they started shelling and we took refuge in the tents! [Laughs]. You know, we were rookies.

And then we spent the 11th December up until the 22nd in the line and the mud it came up to your knees. To mount, to get on the mule you had to walk along the pole between the mules, the pole attached to the limber. Otherwise you couldn’t mount, your feet sank down. The mud was terrible, gluey mud. ‘Course, they’d had a lot of rain and it was a very very wet winter.

At Christmas time we were at a place called Canaples. We went there on 22nd December and were there till the 2nd of January. Well, I managed to get an out-building to put the mules in. It had a roof but the walls were wattle, wattle and straw. Well, I put them in, it was dark when we got there and I went in the morning to see them - feed them - and when I got up they’d eaten a big hole in the wall. Of course, they’d eat anything you see. I had to pay for that. I had it docked out of my pay which wasn’t so damned much.

We moved on the 2nd of January and the trouble was our Christmas parcels hadn’t arrived. They arrived the day we were moving. Well I was alright, I’d had a lot of parcels for the chaps in the infantry. I’d carried a lot for them but it was terrible mis-management. Anyway, we moved from there up the line to the Somme on the 4th of January. The Somme was wide but a lot of swamps and the natives there could work their way across these swamps to get to the other side where the Germans were. We were there from the 4th until March 1916 and then we came down the line and were back there by May.

We were at a place called Bray and to pull the cookers they had big draught shire horses. Well one of the drivers got killed by a shell and this pair of horses hadn’t been out for about a fortnight. Well they needed a lot of work so I said I’d go up the line when it was dark. There were seven bodies put in sacks who’d been killed by mortar fire so I went up with half a limber weighing a few hundred weight with these two big horses which weighed about a ton each. Well, it was only about four miles. I went up and got these [bodies] and coming back it was downhill. Well a shell dropped and they set off. I couldn’t stop them, a couple of tons and I was bringing these bodies back. Anyway, I managed to get them under control. Well they got another chap to drive this cooker with these horses but it was a shame having beautiful shire horses out there.

Another time we were up there we fixed up a water pump to have a shower. Anyway, we’d just started when the Germans spotted us and started up a machine-gun on us. We left all our clothes there and started running. It was just a sideline; you didn’t think much about it at the time.

The Battle of the Somme – July 1916
After a month there we came out to practice for the Battle of the Somme. We had rehearsals for and we linked up with the French. We were on the right hand side of the British Army. Our objective was about a thousand yards, that was all. Well they knew we were coming and our guns were wheel to wheel, you never heard such a bombardment. The small eighteen-pounders and then back to the big ones and they were wheel to wheel. And the French didn’t go the same time we did. Our chaps went over and of course they lost hundreds in the first hour. It was no gain really, a thousand yards was nothing at all. [2]

I didn’t go over the top on 1st July because I was with the transport, taking bombs and ammunition up. What we used to do with the transport was you had a brakesman because you daren’t get off your mules because if you did, with the gun-fire they’d have turned back. So you sat on and you were right up there with everyone taking cover.

In August we came down the line to get a full complement again and to train and then we went up in the line again to a place called La Bassee where the famous canal is. We were up in there for a month and then we came out for a rest and we went up the line again to Fricourt and Albert. This was the 15th of October, another battle.

Now when I first went out, this is going back, for the first few months there was one tin hat between ten men. And the guns, they were in fours, the sixty-pounders, they used to fire one shell each in the morning at dawn and one each at dusk. That was 1915. Then of course it was Lloyd George who saw about sorting that out. They got it all ready for the battle of the Somme. We were well equipped, well trained men and intelligent men. They were all volunteers, there were no conscripts in 1916. They were well trained young chaps and they just slaughtered them, hundreds and hundreds of thousands for nothing at all. They’d got machine-guns, all the emplacements, and they just mowed them down.

They had a raw deal. It used to break your heart to see those young schoolboys. They were so eager and then they put them in the trenches. My brother was out a fortnight. He was seventeen and a half, he had a month’s training and in a month he was killed. Just imagine sending them out like that.”[3]

In my lot there were two young chaps, one was 19 and the other was 20. They were both well educated and came from good homes. After the Battle of the Somme where we lost eight out of ten chaps, they came back shell-shocked behind the lines and were charged with desertion. Our Regimental Sergeant Major tried to get them off but it were no good. He was a hardened veteran from the Boer War but he broke down and cried when they were shot… I was a fatalist, you knew it would be your turn soon. I lost all my friends, I didn’t have one, which was the same with most people.

Well I went up one night with a load of bombs and had to wait in a big field until morning. Well, what happened was they started shelling and I got underneath my bombs and they killed both the mules. They didn’t damage the Mills bombs but anyway I was there until they came for me next morning. In the meantime of course, our chaps had come back about five hundred yards. You never saw any Generals. They were well back in palatial headquarters like St Omer and places like that where they had dinner and all the rest of it.

I saw this chap one day; he wasn’t in our lot but I’d met him and we said we’d go for a drink. I said I’d meet him and he was about as far from me as those houses [about fifty to one hundred yards] when a shell came down where he. There was nothing left of him. These kind of things made you a fatalist; you know, you thought if I’d been there.

On our second Christmas out there the forty eight of us in the transport had got our parcels and we said we’d have a party. We’d got a barn with a tiled roof and Christmas Eve we’d got drinks in and we were just sitting down when a very heavy shelling took place so we had to get all the animals out up on the hills. Well the Royal Scots were in the same village, they’d just come back from India[4], and they were a real wild lot, regular soldiers. Well we got there and thought well someone better go back ‘ cause this thing will be raided with the Scots there. So some of us went back and our roof was gone but we were all right and we got no more shelling. So we had our Christmas dinner with the parcels; we all mucked in you see. We put them on the table and everybody shared them and we’d got wine which was only the equivalent of ten pence a bottle.; ten pence a bottle in those days. So we had quite a nice dinner but Christmas Day we were on duty just the same.

1917

I went on a course for skinning horses and mules as we were getting short of leather. Well there were hundreds and hundreds, well thousands of animals with shrapnel and so on and we used to skin them and get the hides if they weren’t too badly [damaged/mutilated] but it was a terrible job. Some of these had perhaps been dead for a week. So I was on that course for six weeks.

Another course I went on was a veterinary course. That was quite interesting, just for about six weeks.

Another thing we used to indulge in was wrestling on horseback. We went in for a competition and we did all right the first time but in the second round we got pitted against the Military police. I weighed just over nine stone but my opponent weighed fourteen stone. As soon as any portion of you touched the ground you were out. Well he got hold of me and I was out in no time. But it was a bit of fun, it all added to the spice you know. ‘Course, it was a miserable existence with the conditions. Food was very scarce and I never slept in a bed except when I came home on leave. Most times you were out in the open and you’d put up a bit of what they called a bivvie sheet and you’d have a groundsheet in the mud and you’d lie in there. Oh the conditions were terrible.

The German dug-outs were very good. They were well constructed and well drained. Well ours had got duckboards but very often the duckboards were afloat. Sometimes you’d go up the line with rations or bombs and such like and you’d bring wounded back. You’d get perhaps eight chaps who couldn’t walk and bring them back out of the line. But it was pitiful to see these young chaps you know. Slaughtered, absolutely slaughtered. ‘Course, we’d no proper Generals, it was just man-power. Not like Montgomery. He went into battle and he saved his men didn’t he, but these chaps, it was just slaughter.

In 1917 we had the Battle of Arras, that was in March. The Germans let us go because the place was a morass. It was very cold and there was a lot of snow and rain that winter and in March. They let us advance about twenty miles through all this mud and our generals fell for it. We were there from the 22nd March till the 23rd April. We were there a month. Then we came back again for a bit of a rest and to be made up again before moving up to Poperinghe, Dickebusche and Ypres on the 4th June.

We were training for the Third Battle of Ypres and the town itself was an absolute shambles, it was just rubble. We were there from 26th July until the 8th August. It was a terrible place there. The ground must have been eight or ten feet deep in mud and the transport used to go up on corduroy roads made from sleepers. We used to go to a place called Hellfire Corner and they’d got it all lined out to an inch for shelling. We used to stop about two hundred yards away ready for a dash and very often you used to get in between the mules on the pole and go up that way, riding at full gallop. If you got off this track there was no hope; wagons and horses just sank. It had been churned up for months and months by shell-fire and the heavy rain and the place was already very low-lying. I used to go up every other night and take it in turns with my pal. I’d go up and I’d leave him my pay book and all my things in case I didn’t come back and he’d do the same and get it all back in the morning. Anyway, we both came through it but it was a hell of a time up there up at Ypres. We kept coming out for rest and then went up there again from September until January and all that time under constant shell-fire.

I saw the first tanks come out in 1917 but they all got bogged down. This was somewhere on the Somme, in the Autumn of 1917. The ground was feet in mud. They couldn’t manage, it were no use at all. To give you an example of how deep the mud was, we were getting some bombs and ammunition because they were short and it took three pairs of mules to pull half a limber weighing eight hundred weight. Normally a man could have done it but it was sunk down so much and it took us a long time to get through. But fancy, six mules to pull a little box like that. That gives you an idea of the mud. They issued gum boots, thigh-length gum boots. Well, if you wanted to mount you left one stuck in the mud; it was very gluey mud.

1918

In 1918 the Germans attacked on the 21st March. It was a very misty morning and they came through. They came between our horse lines and our headquarters. They captured a lot of prisoners and must have come about fifteen miles I suppose. They broke right through and our only thought was about getting the last boat to England. There were a lot of stragglers and people throwing their rifles away but a few miles back there were Staff Officers and MPs with revolvers making everybody go back and line up again. They’d got fields where these chaps were trying to get some semblance of order.

After the retreat I got in a signals school with the 30th Division and I was acting Quartermaster. It was a few miles behind the line and I went there straight away, I didn’t think they’d get that far. There were about ninety men there and I went off to get the rations. On the way back we get to some bushes and the Machine Gun Corps were there. They said, where are you going and I explained and they said, the Germans are there; you could see them. So I’d got this load of rations with me for four days for ninety men and I’d got the bacon with me and we turned round and didn’t know where the hell to go. So we went on a bit and I said, we’ll have some food now. So we sat down at the roadside where it was quiet and had bacon and fried onions. We had all this grub and didn’t know what the devil to do with it, nobody wanted us.

So I wandered about there until the 2nd April when I was transferred to the Americans to help with the fitting up of the transport. They didn’t know anything about the transport and we used to go to Rouen and pick up the animals and the wagons before returning to the line. Then we’d go up the line with the Americans and they’d be there in a very quiet sector for a couple of days and come back covered in mud. They never thought about washing themselves. They’d sit about in this mud and filth for days just to show they’d been up the line.

Another course I went on was for chaps who’d done a bit of service and who the CO thought deserved a bit of a break. I got down to Etaples and there was a Major there from the Dragoon Guards in charge. He had thirty men there and as you got down, the first thing he said was, ‘take your clothes off I’m going to burn them.’ And you got new underclothing because you were lousy you see. And you had a great big feed and then you started riding then over jumps. You could take three horses over jumps and I was there a month, it was like a holiday. He was a wonderful chap this major.

Then I had a month on a shoeing course which was hard work, and then Sunday afternoons behind the lines we’d have a bit of a rodeo. We’d all got mules, one that wouldn’t ride and we used to have a kitty. There was a chap with a stop-watch and the one who stayed on longest, well he’d scooped the prize. There’d be twenty of you and you’d all chip in with two or three francs. Some of these you’d be off before you got on.

I was with the Americans from 8th May until the end of September and in the meantime I’d put in for my commission. I’d been home on leave and got one or two people – a major and a colonel who’d been invalided out – to get my references. Well then I came back and you had to join a battalion for a month. I wasn’t attached to a battalion so I said I’d join the 21st Manchesters; they were in Italy. I thought I’d have a quiet month but I got to Marseilles when they said they were coming back to France. I joined them on the 29th September and got wounded in the October. Another fortnight I’d have been home for the Inns of Court.

I was wounded in the thigh at a place called Beaurevoir and was taken then to Peronne, Rouen, Havre and then home to England.

After the Armistice had been signed I went to the regimental doctor for an examination. When I went into the army I had been 9 stone 4 pounds. By 1918 I was 7 stone. The army doctor said I was fitter than I’d ever been and I told him he was talking out of his hat. I lost my army pension because of it.

[1] “…there were four thousand of us…” There were roughly 1000 men to a Battalion. By the time the 18th Manchesters (The 3rd City Battalion; colloquially known as The 3rd Manchester Pals) had arrived at Belton Park, it was part of the 90th Brigade, 30th Division; along with the 16th, 17th and 19th Manchesters (1st, 2nd and 4th City respectively). The combined battalions totalled approximately 4,000 men. The Division itself was the first of the Pals Divisions. Seven battalions were comprised of men from Manchester, four from Liverpool (89th Brigade)and one from Oldham.

[2] On 1st July 1916, the 30th Division was holding the line just north of Maricourt and took all of its objectives, including the village of Montauban which was the first village to be captured in the battle.

[3] Colin Bardsley is buried in Doullens Communal Cemetery, extension number 2; plot 11, row 15, grave number 21. Mr Bardsley paid many visits to this site and to the old battlefields during his lifetime. I also visited the cemetery in the 1990s and laid a cross on his grave.

[4] 2nd Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers was a Regular Army battalion which joined the 90th Brigade from the 21st Brigade (7th Division) in exchange for the 19th Manchesters in December 1915. Battalion moved to the 9th (Scottish) Division in April 1918.


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