We were delighted to be interviewed by Dr Tom Thorpe of the Western Front Association for his regular podcast, Mentioned in Dispatches.
The episode looks at all aspects of the Great War in Sevenoaks and can be found here or wherever you normally access your podcasts.
Hope you enjoy listening to it – let us know what you think!
The euphoria and relief that news of peace bought gradually subsided. Local life slowly resumed its old routine and the familiar sight in Sevenoaks of soldiers in khaki was replaced by former servicemen with obvious disabilities.
Others had less obvious but no less serious injuries. Continued efforts were made by organisations like the Comrades of the Great War to continue some of the ties that had bound the men closely together in wartime but there was clear evidence of the suffering that some endured. Some, like William John Ritchie, a former private in the Middlesex Regiment who had lost his sight, used the skills that he learnt at St Dunstan’s (which provided training for blind ex-serviceman in order that they could support themselves rather than relying on charity) making and repairing willow baskets and advertised his services in the Sevenoaks Chronicle in the early 1920s.
Private Stephen Copper
Stephen Copper had enlisted in September 1914 and served with the Royal West Kents. He was shot in the left arm in March 1916, the wound being so severe that the arm was later amputated. Once he had recuperated he returned to his former employer, and despite his injury, drove a motorbike as a delivery man for Kipps the butchers at St John’s. Stephen was no doubt affected by the loss of three of his brothers and his brother-in-law during the course of the war. His sister, Amelia Garrett, also lost her husband, sergeant Thomas Garrett of the Royal Garrison Artillery; a career soldier, who died of natural causes late in September 1918 in Salonika, Greece. The widowed women of Sevenoaks, who had often suffered other family bereavements, were left to raise their children. Others had to contend with a returned husband who was never the same again.
Some men found life after the war too much to bear and the local paper recorded their circumstances. In November 1919, the paper reported a shell shock victim at Tubs Hill Station one Tuesday evening. A young passenger failed to produce a ticket for his journey and could not answer when asked by staff where he had come from. The staff took him in and gave him some food
While eating this he suddenly bent down, put his hand to his head, and commenced to moan as if afraid of being struck by something. Thinking that he had possibly had a blow on the head, one of the officials made as though to touch his head, but he started off again, saying “Whizz, whizz”. The police had meantime been communicated with and the man was removed to the Union.
Others, unable to deal with their experiences, returned home changed men, with all the implications for their family. Rose Baldwin of Seal was granted a separation order against her husband Charles Adam Baldwin, in 1929. The couple had been married in 1918 and had two children, a boy of eleven and a girl aged eight. Mrs Baldwin stated that the marriage had been very happy until her husband had begun to drink to excess after the birth of her first child. Charles Baldwin lived off his pension, having suffered from shell shock and neurasthenia. Baldwin was a country lad of eighteen and living in Ightham when he enlisted with 1912 with the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment. Mobilised on 1th August 1914, he served in France and was shot in October 1914.
Post war, Baldwin was well known to the police for drinking, bad language and other behaviour. On receiving the court summons he had returned home and “proceeded to sell the whole of the furniture, lock, stock, and barrel for £2, including much of his wife’s furniture”. His whereabouts at the time of the court hearing was unknown and the order of separation was given with Mrs Baldwin being awarded custody of their children and her husband ordered to pay maintenance. In 1935, when Baldwin was charged with yet another count of being drunk and disorderly, the Sevenoaks Chronicle noted that
Baldwin alleged that his drunkenness was caused through the war. He was terribly knocked about through the war and suffered with his nerves.
Charles Baldwin was killed in a motor accident in 1939 when, as a cyclist, he was killed while following the hounds. The inquest jury returned a verdict of accidental death. Baldwin’s bicycle was in a very poor condition and there uncertainty as to how much he had been drinking, although it had been asserted that he had only had a pint and a half before setting off.
The Chronicle carried reports of men who took their own lives unable to cope, others were able to carry on but their weakened constitution no doubt contributed to their early death.
Joseph Sutton had fought in the war with the Royal West Surrey Regiment. Two of his brothers, Dick, a rifleman with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and Percy, a signalman on HMS Lavender, were killed during the war and are remembered on the Sevenoaks war memorial. Joseph sustained a fractured skull in April 1918 at Messines Ridge and was discharged from the Army as medically unfit. His injuries required several operations and caused him to become epileptic. The news report of his death in the Sevenoaks Chronicle stated that he had remained as cheerful as he could and was a much respected member of the Sevenoaks Services Club. However, he remained poorly for the rest of his life and died aged only twenty five in 1924. He was buried in the churchyard at St Nicholas, Sevenoaks, without any military ceremony.
The Sevenoaks Chronicle reported Cecil’s death
Cecil George Thompson served for four years in France as a private with 76th Field Ambulance RASC and was recommended for the Military Medal. Both his older and younger brothers were killed during the war and are remembered on the town’s memorial. Cecil had been demobilised in August 1919 before serving for six months with the Imperial War Graves Commission. In his obituary in the Chronicle, the paper linked Cecil’s death with his war service. He had been blown up in a car in 1917 and suffered acutely from shell shock as a consequence.
Some five or six years ago the trouble reasserted itself, and he has been in ill-health ever since, but he had not become seriously ill till the day before his death, when he suddenly lapsed into unconsciousness.
The paper noted that the date of Cecil’s death – 25th September – had a number of associations for the family. Cecil had first crossed to France on September 25th 1915; his brother Sidney, serving with 7th Battalion City of London Regiment, was killed on 25th September 1916; his older brother, Captain Arthur Herbert Thompson of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, was killed on 25th September 1917. The family, sons of Arthur Thompson, former Superintendent of Sevenoaks Post Office was well known in Sevenoaks and news of Cecil’s death, and full military funeral at Greatness Cemetery, was fully reported and no doubt keenly felt throughout the town. “We are grateful” wrote Arthur Thompson “to all our Sevenoaks friends who have shown us such kindness in the loss of the last of our three soldier sons, we say from the bottom of our hearts – thank you.”
In 1940, the Sevenoaks Chronicle reported the case Albert Edward Chew. Chew, then aged fifty eight, was found drunk, singing and shouting in the High street, after drinking a toxic mix of beer and methylated spirit. Brought before the local magistrates he declared himself ‘Guilty, sir, and I am very, very sorry’. It was stated that Chew had tried hard to get work and did not normally drink methylated spirt, given to him on that occasion by another man. He had fallen on hard times and had already pawned his medals for 7s. He was able to provide the paperwork to demonstrate that he had kept up the payments in the hope of being able to recover his medals. The case was dismissed as a first offence on the understanding that Chew would leave the district.
This was not Chew’s first appearance on such a charge. Before a previous court he had explained that
He was hit on the head during the war and not been right since.
Among his medals was the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), which he had been awarded as Gunner A E Chew of the 308th Trench Mortar Battery, Royal Field Artillery for
Conspicuous gallantry when I charge of an isolated trench mortar gun. When his wires were cut he continued firing with good effect and observing for himself under very heavy fire.
Chew’s story clearly moved the magistrates who heard the case. One of their number, Sir Edward Meyerstein paid the costs to redeem his medals and returned them to him.
Mention Christmas and the First World War to most people and they’ll imagine some variation of Christmas truces, football between the warring sides and the seemingly general notion that ‘it will all be over by Christmas’. Certainly Cedric Gordon of the North Staffordshire Regiment wrote this to his mother from France in September 1914. But there would be a further three Christmas Days before the Armistice was signed and I want to look at what that entailed for the people of Sevenoaks, those at war and at home.
In 1914, the popular firm of S.Young and Co. used its regular advertisement in the Kent Messenger to promote its Grand Bazaar, setting the tone by asking the question: Christmas as usual? Why not?
There are thousands of soldiers and sailors to whom Christmas will mean more this year than ever before. There are thousands of children for whom Christmas would be as indeed if the old customs were not kept up.
With so many local men away and large numbers of Belgian refugees in the town, as well as wounded servicemen at the newly established hospitals, fundraising was the order of the day.
Patriotic Christmas cards like this were sent in 1914
Lord and Lady Sackville hosted a concert at Knole in aid of the St John’s hospital where their daughter, Vita, was Commandant. Held on the afternoon of 15th December, the concert featured some well known artistes, including Miss Phyllis Dare and Miss Constance Collier. Children of the estate workers were also invited to a Christmas tea on a Wednesday afternoon.
The troops billeted in the town were not forgotten and the Territorials Christmas fund raised £167 17s 5. which was distributed between 4th and 5th Loyal North Lancashires, 4th and 5th King’s Own, the Army Service Corps, and the Army Medical Corps and Divisonal Headquarters division. The remainder being given to the Soldiers’ and Sailors Families Association.
Letters sent home were regularly forwarded to the Sevenoaks Chronicle to be reproduced for popular consumption. In 1914 Private F G Saxby of G Company 4th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment wrote to local recruiting officer Captain H W Knocker
I am pleased to say that I am quite enjoying myself in my new life. The fellows here are a very sociable lot. The food we have is very good indeed and I have no doubt Major Laurie looks after G Company as well as any.
Our 1st Lieutenant is the Reverend Percy Thompson’s son, and our Second Lieutenant is Archdeacon Dunkerley’s son of St John’s.
I expect to get home for Christmas and I hope I shall as I have always spent it at home up till now. We have some very nice route marches of sixteen to eighteen miles and come home very tired, but full of fun. We have a football XI and are going to play for a cup and shield among the Companies. After all, army life is not all bad.
In January 1915, the Sevenoaks Chronicle printed an article by Thornton Shaw on How Our Troops Fared at Christmas. The article was in fact more of a guide to the men of the north and what was perceived as their strange habits.
“You have got to know the average Northerner before you can hope to understand him. He is, by nature, hardy and brusque, he often omits to lift his cap (which he wears in great preference to a bowler hat) to his lady friends and when he is not on military duty he has an inherent objection in saying “sir” to anybody on earth. But he possesses a heart as big as the wide world itself…”
He continued
“And if some of them seem just a little bit uncouth you must forgive them. And they have done Sevenoaks heaps of good in the matter of trade. Ask any tradesman you like…”
Shaw noted that the residents of Sevenoaks had raised £710 to ensure that the soldiers present in the town during Christmas enjoyed the festivities, with lavish amounts of food and entertainment; one contingent of 25 men “polished off an entire pig between them…as my informant (an officer) laughingly remarked ‘only a collier could have done it’”.
All of the men, wrote Shaw, were grateful but also wistful for the lives they had left at home, one corporal remarking, as he posted home a box of chocolates to his wife
“Ah’d reyther ‘uv bin up at whoam, if ah’d had nowt but kippers”.
News sometimes arrived home from Sevenoaks men being held as prisoner of war. One such man was twenty year old Albert Hayward, the son of William, an old soldier and his wife Jane, who resided at 13, Buckhurst Avenue, Sevenoaks. Albert was working as an apprentice printer before the war and enlisted in London in November 1914. He fought at Ypres With 2nd Battalion The Buffs, where he was taken prisoner in April 1915.
The Chronicle carried a report in January 1916 under the title A Sevenoaks Soldier in Germany, Xmas in an Internment Camp, which featured a postcard that Albert had written to his parents:
“Just a hurried line to thank you for the two parcels which I received in quite good condition. I think I told you that the pudding was quite good, and that the cigars were quite nice and mild. I enjoyed my ‘Xmas quite well under the circumstances. My chum and I had a tin of mutton chops, ‘Xmas pudding, beef and vegetables, for dinner. Of course we managed to forget nuts, oranges, apples etc. the ‘boss’ gave us a bag containing 50 cigarettes, buns and lbs of apples; we also had a ‘Xmas tree decorated up, and we were allowed one bottle of lager beer, which was half the dinner. I hope you all had a very enjoyable ‘Xmas and New Year, and good weather, for we have had some heavy falls of snow lately, but it has changed to rain now. Please tender my thanks to the Rev J Rooker for the card he sent me of the Parish Church. I hope you are all as well at home as this letter leaves me – in the best of health.”
Albert saw one more Christmas before he died as a result of his diabetes in Otcober 1917. He is buried in the Niederzwehren Cemetery in Hessen, Germany and both brothers are remembered on the family grave at St Nicholas’ Church, Sevenoaks.
Throughout the war years, the Chronicle reported how Christmas was spent in the local VAD hospitals, where staff and patients celebrated the festive season together. In 1916, the large ward at Cornwall Hall was decorated with holly and laurel. Another ward featuring ‘a model of a gigantic Zeppelin, with excellent models of aeroplanes in close proximity to it’.
The paper printed a letter from A PATIENT, who outlined what he and his fellow patients had enjoyed
On Christmas Day, after many of the nurses and patients had attended Divine Service at the Parish Church, there was an incessant round of festivities, commencing with a splendid dinner, served in the large ward (cooked at the Royal Crown Hotel, through the kind thoughtfulness of Mr Marshall). Crackers and flowers made the tables look inviting, but when the board was covered with turkeys, mince pies, plum puddings and dessert, the effect was greatly increased.
At St John’s Hall hospital,
The festivities began in the early morning with the good old custom of Santa Claus, each man waking up to find bulging sock in his bed; a surprise provided by the staff and much appreciated by the patients.
In the afternoon, after a typical Christmas tea, there was the stripping of a fine Christmas tree laden with gifts of all kinds, both or the staff and patients. A first-rate football from the nurses to the patients caused much applause as being a happy omen of future victories.
In its 1918 Christmas editorial, the Chronicle noted that despite the still somewhat dimly lighted streets, Sevenoaks has been wearing during the past week or so, a cheerier aspect. The Christmas of 1918 promises to carry with it some of the old-time gaiety. Peace on earth has a greater meaning than, perhaps, it ever had before.
Sevenoaks WW1 