41610 Pte Thomas Lakin, Norfolk Regiment

Synopsis

I interviewed Thomas Lakin at his home in Loughborough in July 1984. He was born in Quorndon, Leicestershire on the 19th September 1899 and prior to being called up he was working as a weaver for M Wright & Sons in Quorn. The company, established in 1870, is still trading in Quorn under its original name today. Thomas Lakin died at Loughborough in September 1987.

Thomas Lakin's narrative

I was in the Notts & Derby Young Soldiers’ Battalion which was a battalion that had had been specially set up to train young soldiers. I was first at Rugeley [Cannock Chase] with them and then we were transferred to Doncaster from where we were marched to Welbeck Abbey. We were under canvas there for a month or two and then we went to France.

I had tried to join up three times before but each time I went to the recruiting office at Leicester my mother fetched me out. She knew I shouldn’t have gone. The first time I went, I went to join the Navy with a mate. They kept me three days and then sent me home and told me to grow up a little bit and put a bit more on my chest. So I never bothered with them again. I was fifteen and a half which was the earliest you could join the Navy at that time.

We did all our finishing training at Welbeck Abbey and then we went down by train to Dover and crossed over to Calais. We were all in one big camp like and didn’t belong to any regiment or anything. But as soon as you got there you were there to be out in any regiment that needed reinforcements, so I got in with the 1st Norfolks.

I was at the depot for about three days and was then posted to up to a little place called Merville that was somewhere in front of Armentieres. We were there two or three months and it was quite quiet. The Portuguese had been there and the Germans had pushed them back, but we went there and we pushed the Germans back. That would be early 1918 before the German advance.

When we left Merville we marched down and finished up on the Somme. There was the Cheshire regiment, The Warwickshire Regiment and the Norfolks. The Cheshire regiment went over the top first, then the Warwickshire Regiment went through them and they took over the front line. Then we went through both of them and there didn’t seem to be much doing; the Germans were falling back.

Where we went over the top we were near two little villages called Aichet-le-Grand and Aichet-le-Petit and they were practically the same. There was always a bit of dead line firing by the artillery before you went over but it wasn’t very pleasant to be under it yourself. So long as it wasn;t too heavy you didn’t bother but it if it got heavy you began to dive for cover. We had little holes at the back of the trench.

When I got wounded it was a spare shell that came over. We were on the corner of a village and you could see the German soldiers preparing to make an attack. They were putting quite a bit of shells over and I got hit by a piece about as big as my hand. It was a good job it was spent but it caught me on the shoulder and broke my shoulder and gave me severe bruising.

I was taken to an ambulance and it were full of wounded from our side and German lads as well. We went to Rheims and I was in hospital there for about a week before they brought us down to Le Havre. We were put on a boat and went to Southampton and I think the journey took about fourteen hours. This would be about August 1918.

When I was wounded the Germans were retreating but they stopped to pump shells into us and managed to hold us up.

I was in hospital for a week or so at Southampton and then I was sent up to a hospital in Stockport just outside Manchester. I was there for about a month and then I had a fortnight’s leave. After that I was posted to a little village in Bedfordshire called Ampthill. The Duke of Bedford had a castle there and he’d got a big park which we used to sleep in in tents. I was having electrical treatment on my shoulder until I got the use of it back. I used to go out every morning with the Duchess of Bedford who later got killed in a flying accident. I didn’t see much of the Duke but he was the fellow who introduced the grey squirrels from Mexico. Down in Bedfordshire there were thousands of them and they used to ruin the crops.

When I’d finished my convalescence I was posted from Bedford down to Dover but while I was travelling down, the Armistice was signed.

370217 Cpl Jerry Hawkes, 8th London Regiment

 

 

Jerry Hawkes (seventh from left in the photo above) deserves more space than I am able to dedicate to him on this particular post. He was one of several Post Office Rifles veterans that I interviewed in the mid 1980s and he had a good recall for names - and nicknames.  This post will try and shed further light on some of the characters he mentioned in my discussion with him.

Jerry Hawkes was actually Albert William Francis Hawkes and he was born in Goswell Road in the City of London on 25th October 1896. He told me, "They know me as Jerry. I don't know where I got that name from, no idea. I became a telegraph boy when I was just a lad. I was in the Post Office orphan homes because my father died early and I was there for a long, long time." His original regimental number with the 8th (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) was 1585 which indicates that he joined the regiment in early 1913.

Jerry's pals and acquaintances

"My best pal of all was Ted Harsant and poor old Ted he got killed. He lived in Goswell Road near me."  This is 1920 Sergeant Frederick William Harsant who was killed in action on 21st May 1916. The Commonwealth War Graves website tells us that he was the son of William David and Emily Virtue Harsant, of 2, Pickard St., City Rd., London. Ted has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.

"We had an officer called Maxwell and he always used to say, I want the deepest dug-out you've got. We used to call him dug-out Maxwell. He finished up as brigadier. Brigadier! Maxwell was windy but his boy wasn't a bad bloke." This is Captain A Maxwell CMG, DSO; later Brigadier-General 174th Infantry Brigade.

"They were nearly all post office men in our mob and we had a fella, Sergeant-Major Chivers, and he always got nick-named "Chum" because every time he spoke  he used to say, "Now don't forget this, chum". Chum this and chum that and so we nicknamed him Chum Chivers." 1443 CSM Simeon George Chivers MC died of wounds on 19th September 1916 aged 42. He was the husband of Charlotte Florence Elizabeth Chivers of 34 Douglas Road, Surbiton, Surrey. He is buried in St Sever Cemetery, Rouen. As well as the Military Cross, CSM Chivers was also Mentioned in Despatches.

"I was in number 4 platoon, Captain Milne's company which was number 2, the same as Bill Howell. I remember being with him in the trenches. We always called him Sammy; I don't know why."
There is a medal index card for a Major D D Milne, 8th London Regt, later Highland Light Infantry. Bill Howell is the same 2518 Bill Howell I interviewed at around the time I met Jerry Hawkes. I have posted about him HERE. 

"We had two relations in our mob, Aberdeen their name was. One was a boy messenger same as me and he put his age up same as I did. Two brothers: Aberdeen and Aber; we always knew the other one as Aber." Probably 520, later 370045 Alexander A Aberdeen and 1559 Frederick Arthur Aberdeen. Frederick, the younger of the two boys, was killed in action on the 15th September 1916 and is buried at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery in Longueval. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission notes that he was the son of Mr and Mrs A W Aberdeen, of 389 Northampton Buildings, Clerkenwell, London. His elder brother joined the Post Office Rifles in 1908 and may well have seen prior service with the 24th Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps. Jerry remembered that "Abber finished up as a sergeant major. He was a wonderful man."

"After the war they transferred me to Stoke Newington because we lived near there and one of the blokes in the office there finished up in my platoon: Harry Diggins. He was a proper clown. He didn't care two hoots about anybody up the line. He just didn't care." This is 1806 Pte Henry Diggins, later 370316. Although his number indicates that he joined the 8th Londons in February 1914, Harry did not go overseas until after 1915. His service record survives in WO 364.

I only met Jerry Hawkes once, at his home in Iwade, Kent in 1986. He died in late 1988 or early 1989, his death registered in January of that year. The photo is taken from Charles Messenger's Terriers in the Trenches.

240801 Pte John Cameron McLellan, 6th KOSB

John Cameron McLellan was born at Dumfries on the 20th June 1899 and I interviewed him at The Royal Hospital, Chelsea in January 1982. Enlisting in the 2/5th KOSB in November 1914, it was not until 1918 that he went to France. 

 

"When my battalion got to its war strength, I was transferred from Dumfries where the battalion was formed, to a holding battalion in Catterick Camp, Yorkshire.  My number with the KOSB was 2538 but when I got to this holding battalion I was given the number 240801 and that was in the 12th Provisional Battalion, a training battalion.  I stayed there until March 1918 when I was old enough to go to France.

"When I got to France I was fortunate.  I was able to join the 6th Battalion of the same regiment, part of the 9th Division.  I saw action In France, mostly in the Armentieres sector but I’m going to tell you how we heard about the finish of the war. 

"We had been out on rest on the outskirts of Courtrai – big city there. And we were lying – at least I was with several others – on the top floor of an old building. All the fan lights had been painted black, the village seemed to be almost deserted, there were very few people in the village and there was no light anywhere. 

"We were getting to bed or lying down on the floor on a palliasse – a sack full of straw – somewhere between nine and ten roughly and I heard a set of pipes playing. Well at that time of night it was a most unusual occurrence so I cocked my ear and listened and picked up the regimental march of the KOSB: the blue bonnets are over the border.  This was so unusual I had to find out why so I said right, put the bloody lights out.  The lights were candles stuck in bottles here and there so they blew the lights out and I lifted one of the skylights and where before the village had been in total darkness it was now just a blaze of light.  All the windows were lit up, doors were open, the street was full of civilians and soldiers shouting and singing.  And out of the noise I picked up the words “Guerre finis” which means “war finished” in French.  And I turned to the lads and I said, “Hey, they say the bloody war’s finished.” So we quickly pulled on some trousers and we could still hear these pipes going up and down and when I got downstairs it was the pipe major of the 6th Battalion who was walking up and down and he’d only got his shirt on, his Glengarry and a pair of boots, and he was playing the regimental march. 

"Well eventually he was going down towards the end of the street and everybody sort of got behind him because at the bottom of the street was a big house, a big mansion, and that was regimental headquarters and the officers’ mess. So we got into the forecourt there, dragged him in, still playing, and eventually the commanding officer and the adjutant came out on a balcony on the first floor. He held his hands up [and] eventually he got peace and he more or less said, “Well lads, I’ve got some news for you. We have been informed that the Germans have agreed to sign an armistice at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.  That means to say the war is finished.” 

"Well one mighty cheer went up and that was it.  I think everybody got pie-eyed.  Where the wine came from I don’t know but it seemed to appear from nowhere.  Well that was it.  The next day we should have been going up the line [but] we got the orders to stand fast and eventually we were re-kitted with new clothing, new equipment and we echeloned up with the Americans right up into Germany with the Army of Occupation.

"I stayed with the KOSB until 1919 when, because I could speak German, I was transferred to the Military Mounted Police [number P19145]  for duty on the border in collaboration with the German Mounted Police.  I was with them a year and a half and then I was transferred to the Special Investigation Branch and I became a detective for the next seven years.  I then went back to the uniformed police and I finished up in 1939 as Regimental Sergeant Major in Egypt."

 

John McLellan died in November 1989 aged 90.

52569 Pte George Henry Bailey- RAMC

 

I first met 'Bob' Bailey in September 1981 and interviewed him on the 15th of that month.  Over the next few years I saw him on and off; usually in The Ship which was his local and the place he met a couple of other Great war veterans that I befriended: Reg Crane of the 4th Royal Berkshire Regiment, and Paddy O'Sullivan of the Royal Field Artillery.  Bob lived in Coval Lane, just around the corner from another veteran, Stan Brown of the Leicestershire Regiment.  Looking back now, forty-odd years later, it seems as if there was a veritable glut of First World War veterans back then, but I remember how difficult it was, even then, to track them down and interview them.  They were all in their eighties and over, and they were all dying off fast.

 

I never knew Bob Bailey as George Bailey; he was always called Bob.  Yet he was born George Henry Bailey in Chlemsford on 28th December 1985 and his medal index card notes George H Bailey.  For me, 19 years old, he was always simply Mr Bailey.

 

Bob Bailey was an apprentice with the National Steam Car Company when he enlisted with the RAMC on 2nd February 1915.  He served overseas from June 1915, working on hospital barges and hospital trains. He preferred to recall that RAMC was an acronym for Run Away, Mother's Coming, rather than Rob All My Comrades.  What follows are notes from Bob Bailey's diary kept, against regulations, between February and November 1915. 

February 2nd: Enlisted

February 5th: Left Chelmsford for Aldershot

February 13th : Left Aldershot for Chatham

June 7th: Left Chatham for Aldershot

June 14th: Left Aldershot for Southampton.  Load 600 tons of hospital equipment on the City of Chester.  Stopped at rest camp for the main body to join us.

June 15th: Left Southampton at 5pm

June 16th: Arrived at Boulogne at 4am.  Landed 11:15am.  Stopped on boat for another night and went to the rest camp for another night

June 18th: Left Boulogne at 12 for Dammes Camiers.  Arrived 1:30pm Friday

July 6th: Started to put our first HP tent up.  The tents were used in the 1911 Delhi Durbar

July 13th: We are about two miles off the sea and we had a bathing parade

July 15th: We had 20 tents up

July 16th: Put the mattress covers on

July 17th & 18th: Garrison Guard 24 hours

July 18th: Sisters arrived

July 20th: Equipping ward ready for wounded

July 21st: Ditto.  Bathing parade

July 22nd: Ditto

July 23rd: Equipping and night guard equipment

July 24th: Equipping

July 25th: Church Parade and fatigue up to 8

July 26th: Taking tents

July 27th: Pitching tents

July 28th: Pitching tents.  Played football game v Canadians No 3 Gen. “25” won 3-2

July 29th: Equipping wards

July 30th: Equipping and detailed for Nursing Orderly of ward. 28 beds

July 31st: Getting ward ready for wounded

August 1st: Church parade and getting ready for wounded

August 2nd :  Ditto

August 3rd: Preparing ward.  Sports.  Canadian got 93 pts, 20th Gen 32[1], 22 Gen 13[2], 25 Gen 8.  Concert in __________ of Hut by Princess Victoria troop

August 4th: Preparing ward on convoy duty

August 5th: Preparing ward.  Convoy arrived at 11:30.  On equipment guard

August 6th: Ward duties

August 7th: Ward duties.  2nd convoy of 70 arrived 8pm

August 8th: Ward duties

August 9th: 3rd Convoy arrived.  90 at 10:30pm

August 10th: 4h convoy of 120 arrived.  26 went to my ward (15 12) at 9am

August 11th:Ward duties

August 12th-14th : Ditto

August 15th:Ward duties and football match with ASC (Army Service Corps) 25th won 6-1

August 16th: Ward duties

August 17th: Ward duties and football match with 18th General at Etaples.  25th won 5-0.  5th convoy arrived at 10:30pm (50)

August 18th: Ward duties

August 19th:Ward duties convoy arrived 1:30am – 20 of 100

August 20th: Ward duties

August 21st: Football match return with 3rd Canadian.  25th won 5-2

August 22nd: Convoy arrived at 12. 100

August 23rd: Ward duties.  Princess Victoria concert

August 24th: Convoy a 3 in the early hours of the morning.  100

August 25th: Play 3rd Canadian at cricket.  Won by 5 wickets and 15 runs

August 27th: Convoy of 70 arrived at 4:30am

August 28th:Played 3rd Canadians and won 1-0

August 30th: Play No 7 convalescents and won 12-2

September 3rd: Convoy of 80 B

September 12th: Convoy of 83 B

September 15th: Convoy of 186 B

September 24th : Convoy of 164 B

September 26th: Convoy of 218 A

September 27th: Convoy of 181

September 28th: Convoy of 155

September 29th: Convoy of 164

September 30th: Convoy of 232

October 1st: Convoy of 175

October 3rd: Convoy of 145

October 7th: Convoy of 167

October 10th: Convoy of 140 9:30pm

October 15th: Convoy of 104

October 23rd: Convoy of 209

October 29th: Convoy of 164

October 31st : Convoy of 197

November 21st : Evacuation of hospital

November 24th: Left 25th General for No 4 Ambulance Flotilla

 

Bob Bailey died in August 1986 aged 90.  His home and those other side of it, were demolished shortly afterwards to make way for a new road.

 

---

[1] Located at Camiers 15th May 1915 to 14th April 1919

[2] Located at Camiers 21st June 1915 to 8th January 1919

 

 

 

126836 Pte Frank Hutchinson MM - MGC

 

 

I interviewed Frank Hutchinson at his home in Loughborough in 1984 whilst I was studying at the university there.  Frank was born at Loughborough on 22nd October 1898 and was a wood machinist at Moss and Sons. He joined the 5th Leicestershire Regiment as a seventeen-year-old in October 1915, subsequently transferring to the Scots Guards and latterly the Machine Gun Corps.

 

Here, he describes the action in September 1918 which resulted in the award of his Military Medal.

 

"September 2^nd 1918.  He says don’t go over the trench, go along and you come out on the wide open spaces.  Then head for the dry canal.  Well we filed out and Jerry let us have every damned thing.  He knowed we were coming.  Everything he could pile at us he piled at us.  The kids were squealing and chaps were going down and it was murder.  I yelled out, “keep spread out, keep spread out.”  There was this young chap from Glasgow and he kept running to me.  How he got into the army I don’t know because his leg was straight down to the knee and then it bent out.  He’d only just come out and this was his first do and I felt sorry for him. 

"A shell burst right on us and ‘bout deafened us and the bits were flying all round.  I thought to myself, “I told Franklin I was going to get it and I’m getting it.” Anyway, I looked and it’s not a nice thing to say but I was smothered with the bits from that lad, it had blowed him to bits.

"Anyway I started to run like the lads and we headed towards one of our tanks which had been knocked out.  We kept expecting to come across the German lines but all we came to was a shallow overgrown trench which had once been Jerry’s horse lines.  There was a post where they were tied and they’d be standing about two feet below the ground level so that their legs were protected.  That’s where I headed and it were flat so we had to get to work quick with the entrenching tools so we could dig a space to open the gun out.  Well we got it up so that we were peeping over the top and bullets were flying round us.

"There was a hut over to the left and that’s where Jerry’s guns were.  We couldn’t see his trench because all the ground was the same colour.  I started firing away at this cottage but it didn’t seem to make any difference.  Then Franklin come and said he’d got a better place for us and to send the lads back.  I was the last one to go and as I jumps on the top there’s a bang.  It were a real bang and it were between my legs.  I stood there looking and then all of a sudden I felt faint and down I went.  A piece of me leg had blew out and even took me trousers with it.  One of Jerry’s dum-dum bullets had burst in me leg and blown all the insides out.

"The next thing I knew I was coming to and Franklin and Sergeant Simmonds were bandaging my leg up.  Thy put me up against this bank and they dressed it.  Anyway, they left me, and the other chap who was with me on the gun helped me into a trench.  There was only me and him left and a young kid who’d come up with us.  He was in the trench and was shaking like a leaf he was terrified.

"I set the gun up and I lay there as if I’d been hit.  Old Jerry were sending shells over and they were bursting all around us.  I looked out and I could see them coming over and I thought, “now’s the time Frankie m’lad, it’s your life against them.” I just pressed down my thumb belt and come round and thought, “all right boys, you’re taking the lot.”  I went right through them and came right back down. I wondered what the hell I was doing.  I don’t know what became of myself, I felt funny.

"Some of the lads were squealing and some were running back and I set to on them with the gun again.  I finished three parts of two hundred and forty rounds.  I finished them all among the lads.  There must have been seventy or eighty of them. I said to Donnelly, “that’s finished them.”  There was no reply and I turned him over and he was covered in blood.  A bullet had hit him in the head and killed him. 

"A Jock came round the corner and asked for some water.  He’s had the top of his right knee taken off by a bullet whereas my wound was to the left leg.  Then Major Whitehouse came round and congratulated me on what I’d done.  All he could say was, “Top Hole.”"



 

 

Frank's service record does not survive, but his entry on the Silver War Badge roll (above), confirms his date of enlistment.  Frank had told me that he'd enlisted in November 1915, so he wasn't far out.

 

I only met Frank Hutchinson the once but he was extremely proud of his gallantry award and was a great orator. He died in April 1987 aged 88.

 

 

The SWB image is Crown Copyright and is reproduced courtesy of The National Archives.

2nd Lt Clifford G Rust, RAF

I snapped the photo above when I met Clifford Goldsworthy Rust at his home in Chelmsford on the 11th September 1981.  As I now remark, twenty years later, to the day, two planes would smash into the twin towers in New York.  Back in 1981 though, I was keen to meet as many WW1 men as I could, and Mr Rust was one of four veterans who lived in the Keene Memorial Homes in Broomfield Road. He was immensely proud of the fact that he was one of Kitchener's first hundred thousand and, asked if I could take his photo, hurriedly found his trio and pinned them to his cardigan, standing to attention for me.  I'm afraid I chopped the top of his head off.

Clifford was born on the 16th October 1895.  He told me his place of birth was Hylands Park, Writtle and indeed, the 1901 census shows him as the five year old son of Uzziel Rust, estate bailiff of Southwoods Farm, Hylands, although his place of birth is recorded on the census as Margaretting, Essex.  Hylands was and still is a large estate, its boundaries touching Writtle and Widford and edging Margaretting and Highwoods.

The 1911 census shows Clifford living with his brother Uzziel, his sister Alice and her husband Joseph Corin Cohen at 183 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford.  Clifford is noted as a 15-year-old schoolboy, his place of birth recorded as "Hylands Widford Essex" although Hylands is scored through.

My notes from our meeting are very brief. He told me that he took part in the Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915 and also went "over the top" on 1st July 1916.  Asked how he felt about that he stated, "We didn't know anything about it; you just didn't care."

Clifford's medal index card (above) fills in some gaps and also shows that he arrived in France too late for Second Ypres.  Of more interest though is a copy of his record of service which he gave me when I met him and which I reproduce below.  This shows his progression from a sapper with the Royal Engineers, appointment as lance-corporal,  promotion to corporal and then transfer to the Royal Flying Corps.  He was graded as flight cadet exactly one week before the signing of the Armistice and was commissioned in February 1919.  His service record presumably still survives at the National Archives or at the RAF museum in Hendon.

I only met Clifford Rust on that one occasion and see from a handwritten note that he died on the 18th June 1987 aged 91.

370713 Cpl Bill Howell, 8th London Regiment

I see from my notes that I interviewed Bill Howell at his home in Hanwell, West London, in November 1986 when he was then aged 92.  Back in 1914 he was working as a telegraph boy for the Post Office and here he describes the situation in August 1914.

"The balloon went up on 4th August 1914 and ninety per cent of postmen were reservists.  The only way you could get in as a postman in those days was through being a reservist or being a telegraph boy.  No civvies could get in.  Well the order came for all reservists to rejoin the colours immediately and out they went leaving the office empty bar eight of us telegraph boys.  So the old man said, "Well go on then, you've got to take all this stuff out.  Go and get wheelbarrows, stay out all night delivering it if you have to.  These men are going out to fight for you and your country."

"The eight of us got in a corner and we said, "well what about it?" We'd heard that the Post Office Rifles wanted two hundred to make up their full strength so we all marched out of the office and left him there swearing at us.  We marched up to Bunhill Row and the place was absolutely packed tight.  Everybody was on the streets and there was a corporal trying to make this two hundred up.  I thought I'd never get in.  He counted off twenty and he was marching them in when he saw me with a telegraph uniform on and my hand on my pouch and he thought I'd got a telegram in there.  He beckoned me over and I said, "tell them I want to join the 1st Battalion."  I didn't want no 2nd Battalion."

[Bill Howell refers to the 1/8th and the 2/8th Battalions here.  When Britain went to war in August 1914 the battalion was designated the 8th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Post Office Rifles).  It only became the 1/8th Battalion in September 1914 when a second-line Territorial Force battalion, the 2/8th London Regiment, was formed.  Bill's original number, recorded on his medal index card, was 2518 and this number certainly dates to around the 8th or 9th September 1914 rather than the early days of August 1914 as might be implied from his narrative.  In Bill's defence, he was recalling events that had happened over seventy years earlier.]

"I goes in there, peels off my uniform and bungs it in the kit bag that was there and never sees it again. I goes over to the doctor and he said, "You're a very fit man, you are, but you want to put on a bit of weight and height.  Go and get measured." So I went over to the scales and got measured and the corporal said, "sorry son, you're half an inch under.  It's five foot two and you're only five foot one and a half." Well, he could see the tears in my eyes.  "Well", he said, "perhaps I made a mistake.  Get on again.  Now" he said, whispering because they were all watching you, "stand on tip-toe you bloody little fool." So I stood on tip-toe and got the extra half inch.  He said, "Now you're in" and that's how I got in.

"After two days a uniform came.  I went home in a shocking affair: a hat two sizes too big and an old coat.  I goes upstairs and there's my mother with the old corrugated washing tub.  She saw me and she said, "What are you doing here?  Who told you to come here?  Get out, I'll call the police."  I took my hat off and said, "it's me, your Willy."  She fainted.  After we got her round she said, " you go and get that shilling back."  I said, "I never had it, just this bit of paper.  It's no good, nothing can take me out."

Bill Howell died in July 1991 aged 96.  His account of the Battle of Loos is here.  I'll continue with some of his other recollections in future posts.

The photo above dates to 1977 and appears in Charles Messenger's book Terriers in the trenches: The Post Office Rifles at War 1914-1918. Bill Howell is seated third from left.  Chelsea Pensioner, ex sergeant Jim Nunn, seated to Bill's left, wears the MM & Bar.