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Thread: Liverpool Pals

  1. #46

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    Squiggs its on the site.
    BE NICE......................OR ELSE

  2. #47
    Pablo42 pablo42's Avatar
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    Nice one Spike.

  3. #48
    Senior Member squiggs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spike View Post
    Squiggs its on the site.
    Thanks Spike .....hope Sue is feeling better now !

  4. #49
    Senior Member squiggs's Avatar
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    Spike I have another rellie for you but cant find details !, this is what I know.....his name was Thomas Hughes (my Grandfathers brother) he was born in about 1892 in Toxteth son of Griffith and Esther and he died at the battle of the Somme in 1916, thats it !!....I remember in my Grandads house there was a portrait of a soldier in uniform I can inly assume it was Thomas, but none of the family know what happened to it !....can you help ?

  5. #50

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    I read Charlie May's letter about 6 years ago. I am not ashamed to say that it brought tears to my eyes.

    It makes you look at your own loved one's and be thankful that you can share their lives. unlike so many of the brave who fell.

    I decided I had to take something from Charlie May's story. It touched me so much. I just had to make his short life mean something. That is how I look at all those who died at war. My Grandfather and My two Great Grandfathers died at war and of course their stories are special to me. But I try to look at all those who served and died on all sides. Remembering them is a duty I believe. Thats why I do the research. A few madmen on all sides caused all this, the others were victims. They were just like you and and me living their lives.
    Remembering them is the least I can do. Thank you Charlie for the nudge.

    If you did not see the CH4 Documentary " THE SOMME " you can see it on Youtube

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pjYxhzPJgE

    It is worth watching. The story is told from letters of men serving on all sides. It is based around the 22nd Manchesters, of whom Charlie May was Captain. It really is thought provoking. It includes a passage from Charlie May's letter to his wife, It is a hard person that is not moved by his letter or this documentary.

    I hope it will get people interested in their own relatives or their local memorial. You can research them. I am here to offer help and advice.

    Meet up 11th November 11.am The Cenotaph.
    BE NICE......................OR ELSE

  6. #51
    Senior Member RonnieW's Avatar
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    My mate's son Raymond Waring was in that documentary Spike. I'd say it's one of the best things I've ever seen on the First World War.

  7. #52

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    Ronnie has submitted his story for his Great Grandfather Joseph Tague.

    With Ronnie's blessing I am posting his story here. I was very moved reading it.



    Visit to the grave of Private Joseph Tague, King's Liverpool Regiment. 1878-1916.

    In 1984 I was a member of 307 ( City of Liverpool ) Field Ambulance RAMC (V). That year, Our Annualcamp was taking place in Grobbendonk , near the town of Herentals in Belgium.
    The only other time I had ever been to Belgium was travelling through from Ostend on our way to the 1977 European cup final. I knew my Great-Grandad was buried somewhere in Belgium because the family sometimes mentioned it.

    I asked my Grandma, his daughter Florence Roberts if she had any information on my Great-Grandad Joseph Tague. She had some old papers in a box which included a letter of condolence to his wife from his employer, Liverpool Corporation, and a letter from the government giving the name of the cemetery he was buried in, Lijssenthoek.Joe joined the 1st/5th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment. One of the Liverpool Pals battalions. He left a wife and 7 children, an eight having died while still a baby.

    The only information the family had about Joe was that he had been wounded in the neck while the battalion were in trenches in the Ypres Salient. A neighbour's son had seen Joe being carried up the line by stretcher bearers and written home to tell his mother. She then called round to see if Joe's wife Eliza had any further news. she didn't, but soon the telegram arrived informing her that Joe had died from his wounds.

    Like many people who lived through those times, Eliza always referred to 'France' when she meant the area of North eastern France and North western Belgium. Few people ever referred to Belgium.

    I made a note of the cemetery and took it to Belgium with me in case it was near Herentals and our camp. The first week passed as any other TA camp did whether on Salisbury plain or Catterick. Living in tents then spending four days on exercise with other TA and regular units. The following saturday, we left the tents for a permanent camp in Grobbendonk.

    Already there were our friends from 308 ( City of London ) General haspital. Our chaplain asked if anyone was interested in a coach trip to visit the battlefields of Flanders. Suprisingly, only about 50 people were interested out of several hundred, the bars of the town being a bigger attraction for them.

    We made an early start on the Sunday morning, the chaplain having found a retired Royal Corps of Transport Major who was an expert on the area to act as guide. The Major brought with him some tapes of interviews with veterans of WW1, and tapes of popular songs of the day. I asked him if he had heard of Lijssentoek. He had, and told me we would be passing very close to it and would make a stop.

    After a trip along the motorway, the Major pointing out places where incidents of WW2 had taken place, we arrived in Flanders. We saw the WW1 memorial to the Rifle Brigade, which the Germans had shot at when they invaded again in 1940, the site of one of the tunnels the British had dug under the German trenches, some very substantial two storey German block houses made of concrete, and on to the cemetery near Ypres where Captain Noel Chavasse VC and Bar was buried.

    I was very interested in seeing this paticular grave as Captain Chavasse ran for Sefton Harriers, the club I was a member of. His father had been the second Church of England Bishop of Liverpooland had christened some of Joe's children at St Luke's church, so there was a slight family link. As we were a medical unit and Captain Chavasse was an officer in the RAMC, we had a short service at the grave before getting back onboard the coach. We had only been travelling a few minutes when we stopped and the Major announced we were going to look for the grave of a relative of one of our party.

    The other passengers seemed very interested, and everyone left the coach to see the grave of Joe Tague. Commonwealth War Graves have solid stome gate post and inside one of the posts is set a steel box containing a book with the details of each grave, the name, rank and number, name of wife and the address at the time of death og the man interred. How long these books would last back home is anyone's guess.

    The Major took out the book and asked me if the named man was my Great-Grandad. Its quite a moving experience to see the details of a relative, even one who had died many years before, written down. There, in a place far away and from a different time was Joe's name, the name of his wife Eliza, and their address, 31 Blake Street, Liverpool. The house was destroyed by a land mine in December 1940, along with much of the family photographs and papers, so I would like to place on record my thanks to Anthony Hogan of Yo Liverpool for filling in sevaral important gaps.

    We soon found Joe's grave, which like every other grave was immaculately maintained. The King's ( Liverpool ) Regiment badge, his name, rank and serial number were unaffected by decades Belgian rain, and were very clear on the White headstone.

    The Major told us that Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery had been attached to a field hostpital and that most of those buried there had died of wounds while being treated at the hospital. Not far from Joe's grave were a row of five German graves. The headstones of the German soldiers differed from those of Commenwealth troops in being square topped rather than having a slight arc.

    The Major explained that in the Ypres Salient, the German's were able to fire on the allied armies from three sides, but as even the slightest hill gave a valuable view of enemy positions in the mainly flat Flanders countryside, the British were in no mood to relinquish the salient or the town which stood beside it.

    I took some photograph's of Joe's grave to give my Granmother and several members of our party wanted photograph's of me standing behind his headstone to take back home to show their families. If only Joe had known that twenty four years after his death, his surviving son Edward and his son-in-law, Jack Roberts would be back in Belgium and France fighting over the same country against the same enemy.

    We boarded the bus and the Major told us we still had plenty to see, which turned out to be correct! In the next few hours we visited Hill 62, the nearvy sanctuary wood, Maple Copse, Polygon wood, Kemmel, Hellfire corner, Ploegsteert wood ( nicknamed " Plug Street " ) the massive crater left by the mine at Hooge, the huge Tyne Cot Cemetery, and the nearby field where Canadian Lt Col. John McCrae and an unknown RAMC Captained who was dressing his wounds penned the Great war poem ' In Flanders Fields '

    We visited the town of Poperinghe which is home to Talbot House, the house which Rev 'Tubby' Clayton opened as a place where soldiers could rest when out of the front line for a few days. The charity 'Toc-H' takes its name from Talbot House ( T H being 'Toc-H' in the phonetic alphabet of the day.

    A visit to the Menin gate to the the thousands of names engraved there and to hear Last Post sounded by the Ypres Fire Brigade Buglers rounded off the day. All commenwealth countries are represented on the walls of that great memorial and it would do the members of certain political parties well to visit it and see the hundreds of names which are more familiar in the Sub Continent and Africa than the fields of Northen Europe.

    For many in our group, the Menin gate would be the highlight of a very interesting and moving day, but for this paticular Scouser, nothing could beat seeing the last resting place of his Great-Grandad, Private Joseph Tague, a Liverpool Pal.
    BE NICE......................OR ELSE

  8. #53
    Senior Member lindylou's Avatar
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    Quote:Its quite a moving experience to see the details of a relative, even one who had died many years before, written down. There, in a place far away and from a different time was Joe's name, the name of his wife Eliza, and their address, 31 Blake Street, Liverpool. The house was destroyed by a land mine in December 1940, along with much of the family photographs and papers, so I would like to place on record my thanks to Anthony Hogan of Yo Liverpool for filling in sevaral important gaps. Quote.



    It is so true how moving it is to see lost relatives listed names. So sad, but I am glad you found this.

    .. and well done to Spike/Tony

  9. #54

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    Lindy this is all Ronnie's work.

    I looked up in census records for Joseph.

    The war story is all his. And I think it is great to read his journey.
    BE NICE......................OR ELSE

  10. #55
    Pablo42 pablo42's Avatar
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    Nice one.

  11. #56
    Re-member Ged's Avatar
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    Well done to all.

    www.inacityliving.piczo.com/

    Updated weekly with old and new pics.

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