TONIGHT'S UPDATE IS VERY SIMPLE. Just a video based on  Eric Gardiner and James Cole, two of the Wisbech men who died in the Great War, and whose stories were told in earlier blogs. The music is a lovely old hymn called 'Only Remembered'. The words were written by Horatius Bonar , an Edinburgh man, and the tune was composed in 1891 by the great American hymn writer, Ira D. Sankey. The hymn has been used in an episode of 'Sharpe' - the one where he goes back to Yorkshire, and meets his long lost brother - and also in the stage version of 'Warhorse'.

AFTER THE NEGATIVE RANT LAST NIGHT ABOUT WHAT SOME SCHOOLS HAVE TO PUT UP WITH, Pickwick is delighted to be able to report on something really positive happening in Wisbech. No committees, no working parties, no high profile press calls or soundbites - just someone actually getting on with a worthwhile activity.

DRAMARAMA is a children's group set up just over a year ago for youngsters aged from 5 to 14 years of age.

The club meets at the Rosmini Centre every Tuesday from 5pm til 6.30pm. It runs throughout the year with a list of social events during August and is ***TOTALLY FREE***.

The group are currently writing their next play - it's all about Pirates invading Wisbech from the River Nene!

They are  recruiting older members from the age of 9 years. Both boys and girls are welcome. For more information contact Annie Appleby at the Rosmini Centre on: 01945 474422 leaving a landline number.

In reply to a very good man, John Melton, who is a proper parent.

Kind words, John, but let’s be clear about something. You and Joy were devoted and supportive parents who wanted the very best for their kids, and actually believed in the good old-fashioned concept that people could ‘better themselves’. In other words, their children would learn useful stuff from teachers who knew useful stuff, which would mean that said children would not have to struggle like mum and dad did.

Sadly, there are ‘parents’ out there – sorry, I’ll rephrase that – there are adults who are legally responsible for children  - who hate learning, despise teachers, and would be only too pleased if their offspring graduate into the same kind of chain-smoking, work-shy, benefits-dependent apology for a citizen that they are.

Because these people are ‘unwaged’, ‘currently seeking work’ or whatever fancy euphemism you want to apply, they are instantly available during the school day to roar up to school in their nice cars so that they can eff and blind at school staff. How do they know when to come? Well, little ******* has an expensive mobile ‘phone which probably cost more than his form-tutor’s car, so he can let mum and, usually, mum’s current boyfriend know that that nasty Mr ******* has infringed his human rights, and assaulted his personal dignity by asking that he doesn’t eat his roast dinner with his fingers.

In addition, young ******* has to face the personal indignity of sitting a public exam. Your child and mine  probably had to do their homework, learn some stuff, and turn up to some revision classes which may have put you to some personal inconvenience, like picking them up from school. Yourself. No, not in a taxi paid for by local rate-payers, or driven home by the teacher whose car is worth less than your latest game console. Because ******* has been diagnosed as having some obscure ‘learning difficulty’, when he does his exam, he will have someone to read the question, someone else to write the answer, and probably a third worthy to whisper in his shell-like what the answer actually is.

But still, you are a voter. And there are more of you than there are of Mr Hamilton, the kind Geography teacher who gave up his half term to take your son on a school trip to the French Battlefields. And so, those awfully nice politicians who spend every waking hour pushing re-election leaflets through your letterbox respect your opinion. It is gold-dust; it is manna from heaven; they will discard the opposition from teachers, because they are a bunch of left-wing no-hopers who would have voted Labour anyway. No, we will have a continuing drive to castigate and belittle teachers, and we will employ a cadre of failed teachers, call them OFSTED, and give them the power to make or break schools, and to reduce teachers (who are human beings, and, usually care about the children in front of them) to dispirited, depressive wrecks.

As you may gather, I no longer work in education, but I wish my former colleagues all the love in the world – may their adversaries rot in the depths of hell.

HERE IS A SONG FROM THE GREAT WAR. It is 'Mademoiselle From Armentieres' sung by Jack Charman. The song was widely sung - and rudely parodied - by British soldiers. Click on the media player to hear the music.

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But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

 

THE BATTLE, KNOWN TO MILITARY HISTORIANS AS 'SECOND YPRES' was basically a German assault on several points of The Salient, and began with an gas attack on the French lines at Gravenstafel on April 22nd, 1915. While this gas attack was unprecedented and unexpected, it had been clear for some time to the British and French forces that some kind of assault was imminent. Therefore, there was intense activity right along the front line: trenches and breastworks were being repaired, ammunition and supplies were being carried up to the front with great urgency, and rest periods and leave for individual units was drastically reduced. It is obvious from Eric Gardiner's diary that he was having to write retrospectively, several days at a time, as he was enjoying less and less free time.

On the evening of April 20th, Eric, with a small carrying party from his Company, were moving through a communication trench south west of St Eloi. A letter from his best friend, Billy Cooke, tells what happened next.
"Eric and I were together when it happened. We were bringing up the rear of a small party on the way to an isolated little trench when he was hit in the thigh by a piece of shell. I dressed his wound as best I know how and did what I could to stop the bleeding, but it was a dark night and we were under heavy fire from the Germans. His leg was too badly shattered for me to carry him on my way back to a place of shelter, so I just waited with him for the stretcher bearers, but they never turned up…..Then, with the help of some Tommies from another regiment we carried him to the shelter of a little wood. The other regiment kindly lent me their own stretcher to carry poor old Eric on, but before he could be got to our dressing station, the poor chap died."

THIS LETTER WAS WRITTEN BY COOKE TO ANOTHER SOLDIER. He did write to Eric's parents, but spared them the harrowing details of Eric's death. He concluded,

"Eric and I were very much attached to one another, and I miss him very much indeed. When I came out of the trenches yesterday I visited his grave, but as it was in view of the German lines I was admonished for going there when I got back."

Eric was buried in the grounds of Elzenwalle Chateau, where a makeshift military cemetery had been established. The first permanent markers of British and Commonwealth war graves were sturdy wooden crosses, but long after the war ended, these were systematically replaced with the marble headstones more familiar to modern battlefield visitors. Incidentally, there is one of these to be seen inside the church of St Peter and St Paul in Wisbech. It was the grave marker of 1st Lt Anthony Crookham, the son of the Vicar of Wisbech.

The effect of Eric's death on his family was devastating. It was made worse by the fact that many of Eric's letters home had been published in 'The Advertiser' on a regular basis. Over the previous months, Frederick Gardiner, like all other editors across the land, had written a series of editorials in support of the war effort. Now, he had to find the words for the most difficult piece he would ever be called upon to write.

"Our sympathy, all the keener because tempered by experience, goes out to those families whose losses are reported in the casualty lists. The poignancy of such a loss brings the reality of the war to the very home portal, and shatters hopes long nursed..
The tendency is to lose sight of the main theme in the personally jarring note, but gradually one learns to sing the new song, realising that herein lies the important duty.
Also, while we mourn our losses, we can turn to the results achieved and find consolation in the fact that the sacrifice nobly given is not for naught. The fighting in the neighbourhood of Ypres (is) specially interesting in this district because of the presence of the Cambs Regiment, and others in whom we are interested…"

After the war had ended, the French and Belgian authorities realised that there were just too many tiny cemeteries scattered about the Old Front Line, and so the War Graves Commission set about the melancholy task of disinterring many of the bodies from these small cemeteries, and putting them all together in what were called 'Collection Cemeteries' Eric's remains were re-interred in Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3. The inscription on his headstone is echoed, in plural form, on the town memorial in The Crescent.

OF WISBECH, ENGLAND

GOD GAVE HIM A GREAT THING TO DO, AND HE DID IT

This account was sourced from a collection of Gardiner documents and memorabilia in Wisbech Museum. It seems that Eric's death made the relationship between Frederick and the older son, Grahame, somewhat strained. Later in the war, Grahame was conscripted to fight, but successfully appealed to the Wisbech Tribunal ( a panel set up to review appeals against conscription) on the grounds that he was running the local paper, and thus his work was too valuable at home.

There is a memorial to the Gardiners in Leverington Road Cemetery. The main column bears the names of Frederick, and his wife Amelia. On one of its kerbstones is a reference to Eric - " INTERRED IN A CHATEAU GARDEN"

"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye,
  Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know 
The hell where youth and laughter go."

Eric Gardiner was fighting in what was loosely called 'The Ypres Sector'. The actually city of Ypres was a few miles to the north of Locre, where Eric was still billeted, but its towers and spires could be seen on a clear day over the flat fields.. In early 1915, there was still much of the medieval city still standing. Photos taken four years later would show hardly one stone left standing on another. The British lines to the east of Ypres were in the form of a salient - that is, an oval 'bite' in to the German lines. The result was that soldiers actually in the Salient had the unique experience of being fired on from the shallow ridges to the north, the east, and the south.
The ground where Eric served his time in the front lines was flat. In peace time, it had been kept drained by a complex mesh of drains and dykes which would have been reminiscent of the Fens around Wisbech. Months of shelling had destroyed the drainage system, and it only took a few shovelfuls of digging down to get to the water table. Consequently the trenches were muddy, treacherous and insanitary.

On 15/2/15, Eric wrote in his diary:
"The day opened miserably with rain and mud. Very early (7 o'clock) one of our big guns started shelling the trenches in front of us. Our nerves were tried by the explosions of the big shells. They were so close that we could see the shells hurtling through the air, and felt that if one were to drop short we would be in a sorry plight. Later on, the Germans shelled the supports behind us ….they were mostly 'Whizzbangs' but some shrapnel was fired, and one near K2 killed 2 and wounded 18. We ate what we could, but none of us was very cheerful and could not eat much. The trench we were in was divided in two by a gate known as Hell's Gate, because when the Gordons attacked the wood in front, a German machine gun was trained on this gate, and as they went through, shot them down. They lost 62 men through this. Unfortunately, some of them still lie in front of this trench and can be seen. It was on this night that Kenneth Powell* was hit while on a fatigue in K2. He has since died of wounds."
*This was Private 1832 Kenneth Powell, of the HAC. Aged 29, son of James and Mary S. Powell of Aldersyde, Reigate, Surrey. He is buried in Loker (Locre) Churchyard. (pictured below)

Soldiers down the ages make do with what they are given. Even today, scarcely a news bulletin goes by without some new story of squaddies having 'the wrong kit', or having to be supported by parcels from home. Sadly there is nothing new under the sun. Kipling summed up the ambiguous relationship that civilians and politicians have with their soldiers:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Despite the cold, the wet, the squalid sanitation and the ever-present danger from shelling, there were clearly moments when the men were out of the line, had time on their hands, and the sun occasionally shone. Memoir after memoir from The Great War reveal that there was one common thread which kept most of the men sane, and able to go about their frightful business with some degree of equanimity. It wasn't patriotism, it wasn't any kind of support for whatever political cause had landed them in the position they were in, it wasn't some vague sense of duty. No, it was a rock-solid conviction that they didn't want to let their mates down. Some of this camaraderie is almost tangible in personal photographs which have survived. In the photo below, Eric is hunched in a cold trench with some of his brothers in arms. Note that they are wearing soft caps. The iconic 'tin hat' which most people associate with Tommies did not come into general service until 1916.

March 1915 came and went with Eric still billeted in Locre. he was in and out of the line, usually at 'the sharp end'. Sometimes his diary entries are unintentionally comic, even reminiscent of Mr Pooter, because they are so formal and understated. Here, he describes a narrow escape while carrying rations back to his unit.
13/3/15 "…and on one occasion a bullet passed through a sack of cheese and bread I was just hoisting onto my shoulder, and took the corner off my water bottle - a close shave. Unfortunately I was carrying the Section rum in my bottle, and had therefore to undergo severe criticism."

In early April, Eric's unit was moved to a hamlet called Elzenwalle, which was dominated by a semi ruined chateau. He was to be part of the fighting at St Eloi, a crossroads village where there had been extensive mining and counter-mining over the winter. While in this sector, Eric bumped into some acquaintances from home-who were serving with the Cambridgeshire Regiment-notably Captain Phillip Muirhead Clayton, who went on to command his regiment, and Jack Ollard, who was invalided home, but went on to be a Wisbech solicitor and Town Clerk.
On April 14th, 1915, Eric wrote:
"We who had not fixed bayonets did so, and just waited for them to come, meaning to give them a hot time, but they came not, and the fire died down. We then came back to the farm. Billy and I went to the Chateau for rations, and after some difficulty owing to people being asleep, got what we wanted and returned to much needed rest."

These were the last words Eric wrote.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

The Wisbech Advertiser was first published in August 1845, and continued in one form or another until 1975. It is now the Fenland Citizen. In 1914 the editor was  F.J. Gardiner, and the family had a general printing business based in Union Street. Frederick and his wife Amelia had two sons. The elder was Grahame, who was already involved in the family business, and Ernest Frederick, known as Eric. 

Eric originally attended Barton School, but was sent away to the rather more prestigious Mill Hill school in London. From there, he had qualified as an accountant. The family was home was 'Trevordale', which still stands at the end of Alexandra Road.

Courtesy of Frederick Gardiner having 'a quiet word' with influential friends, Eric was able to secure a position in one of the elite regiments of the British Army - The Honourable Artillery Company. This was the country's oldest Territorial regiment, and dated back to the time of Henry VIII. It was very much a gentleman's regiment.

The first units of the HAC were sent to France in December 1914. Eric missed this first draft, and was able to spend Christmas in Wisbech, but when he returned to barracks in January 1915, he found that his company was preparing to cross the channel in mid January.

Very much against military regulations, Eric kept a diary. It was beautifully written, both in the sense of the flowing, beautifully legible handwriting, and the apt and careful use of English. The diary is tiny - smaller than an audio cassette. It begins:

This diary belongs to
Private E.F. Gardiner
H.A.C.

Relates his experiences in The Great European War
1914/15

Commencing at arrival at Base Camp at Rouen 25/1/15

Eric's unit traveled by train from Rouen to Bailleul, in Flanders. Bailleul was an important railhead, air depot and hospital centre.

Eric's diary entry for 30/1/15 says:
"On arrival at Bailleul heard for the first time heavy gunfire. Many aeroplanes knocking about. It is reported 1 enemy aeroplane brought down. While walking sound of nine bombs dropped heard. Sounded pretty close, and caused everyone to start and look up."

It should be pointed out that the HAC were not, in fact, an artillery regiment - they were infantry, and their name stems from their earliest days when the word 'artillery was given to any kind of mechanical weapon, such as a musket or a crossbow.
By early February, Gardiner's relatively peaceful baptism into soldiering was over. His company had been moved up into trenches near Kemmel and Locre. 

On 14/2/15, he writes:
"All this time, our guns, against their usual custom) had continued firing at night, and both sides were blazing away, lighting up the country all around. We started out feeling here was something doing…and we halted while the German star shells in numbers lit up the sky around us. The order came sharply. "Lie flat down!" and we all went down like one man. I went down on my stomach in mud which covered our boots over the tops…We then proceeded to relieve our fellows in K1 (trench) having negotiated several awkward places where shells and streams had made the ground knee deep in mud and water."

TO BE CONTINUED