Crawley’s Post Office Heroes

As a postman you would think it would be easy to get a photograph of a war memorial from a neighbouring office. Despite numerous requests I have had no luck until yesterday when I was sent to Crawley to deliver a round there. To my delight I was able to find the memorial straight away and what a special one it is too.

It was originally placed in the old Crawley post office building at the now disappeared Robinson road and has been hanging in its present position for approximately 40 years. The original hanging ceremony took place towards the end of 1919 and was reported as follows in the local press:

There was a large gathering at the Crawley post office on Sunday afternoon, when there was unveiled the war memorial erected by past and present members of the staff to the memory of their colleagues who made the supreme sacrifice in the war. In addition to the rector and the postmaster and many other local dignitaries, all members of staff and relatives of the fallen heroes were present.

Mr Clarke opened the proceedings in a brief speech in which he said that everyone should realise how indebted we were to the men who died giving their all that we might live to enjoy the heritage we did. England would have been a far different place in which to live had the enemy conquered. He knew all sympathised with the relatives left behind, and we should be grateful for what the men had done for us.

Charles King had served the post office nearly 15 years, William Joseph Thorndike (who was one of the ‘contemptibles’) and Herbert Tester about 5 years. At the outbreak of war the staff had 23 men eligible for the army, and of these 21 served, whilst the other was placed on most important and indispensable duties in a coast town. The hymn ‘Through the night of doubt and sorrow’ was sung, appropriate prayers were offered for the occasion and Mr C. J. Mitchell then unveiled the memorial, which had been covered with the Union Jack.

‘Let saints on earth in concert sing’ was the closing hymn, and this brought a brief but very impressive service to a close. The memorial consists of an oak tablet beautifully embellished by very fine carving, and bares the words ‘In proud and grateful memory of Charles King, Herbert Tester, William Joseph Thorndike, of the Crawley postal staff, who made the supreme sacrifice 1914-1918. Their name liveth forever more.’ Mr Harry Bacon executed the tablet, which hangs in the public counter.

Rifleman Charles King was with the Post Office Rifles when he was killed in action at Ypres on 20^th September 1917 at the age of 38. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

Herbert Clark Tester was a rifleman with the London Rifle Brigade when eh was killed in action on 23^rd September 1916 at the age of 19. His was body was also never found and he is commemorated on Thiepval memorial.

Serjeant William Joseph Thorndike appears to have survived his time as one of the Old Contemptibles and was serving with the Military Police Corp when he died at the age of 45 on the 21^st March 1918 in Egypt. He is buried in the Kantara war memorial cemetery 50 kilometres south of Port Said.

Very happy to have passed another milestone in my quest to track down as many names of the Fallen of Crawley as possible.

Centenary Misgivings

As welcome as the renewed interest in the Great War is and as worthwhile as some of the centenary projects are – the IWM lives of World War One – is an example, I am beginning to have serious misgivings about the centenary.

Firstly, the BBCs laudable efforts since the beginning of the year particularly the Hastings and Ferguson debates have been rather let down by the quite ridiculous The Crimson Field. Having caught up with the series and watched it until its conclusion I have to confess to finding it complete and total bilge. Of course I am aware that the programme is designed for entertainment first and as such most historical detail can be cheerfully cast aside in the name of ratings but some of the bizarre coincidences the soap opera like nature of each characters storyline and the complete lack of commentary by anyone that mentions anything to do with the actual fighting are just some examples.

Shelling only seems to take place once every other episode and nobody ever seems to get their hands, let alone their uniforms, dirty. The weekly arrival of a convoy of wounded, accompanied by some heartfelt plucking of various string instruments seems to be the only real acknowledgement that a war is taking place. Various characters seem to have enough time on their hands to make secret assignations in the woods or to slope off to the nearby town for a jolly. Virtually every Great War cliché has been explored in this first series and I fully expect that if a second series is commissioned one of the characters will start writing poetry. Utter tripe!

But far worse is the recently launched Football Remembers Project. As I understand it the football connection is being introduced to commemorate the football match that took place between British and German soldiers during the Christmas truce of 1914.  There’s just one problem. There is no valid historical evidence that any such football match ever took place. The brilliant author Henry Williamson, who was actually at the front on Christmas day 1914, does say that a football was kicked into the air and several men chased after it. He also reports that a game was proposed to take place behind German lines. The idea that any Officer would let his men go off behind enemy lines to enjoy a kick about is ludicrous. There is no doubt that the truce took place but the main priority of the men of both sides, after exchanging festive pleasantries, was to bury their dead. I cannot imagine that the men would be quite happy to have a game of football whilst being surrounded by the torn bodies of their dead comrades. It could hardly be said that the shattered landscape of No Mans Land would be a conducive surface for the beautiful game. Some re-thinking is needed.

We should always bear in mind the dangers of re-writing history. The stories of those terrible times and the people that lived through them should not be embellished or ‘sexed-up’ in the name of entertainment or because that’s what we wanted to have happened. That generation deserves to have the facts and nothing but the facts told about it. We should also consider that history will remember our generation for how we marked the centenary. We must be very careful to stick to the facts and not pass on our version of what happened then. 

A Very Bright and Promising Lad

May 1918

DEATH OF 2^ND LIEUT. R. E. COOK. – The sad news has been received of the death of 2^nd Lieut. Richard Edward Cook, of the Suffolk Regiment, only son of Mr  & Mrs A. E. Cook, of Perryfield Road, Crawley. A telegram on Saturday announced that he had been wounded, and this intimation was succeeded by a communication conveying the information that he had succumbed to his wounds, which, it is understood, were in the abdomen. Very great sympathy will be felt for the bereaved parents and daughter, as well as for the other members of the family, who are held in high respect in the district.

2^nd Lieut. Cook was 20 years of age and he joined the Army as soon as he was eligible, remaining at school until a short time before he was 18. He was a very bright and promising lad, and though he has sacrificed his life in the greatest of all causes, his death will nevertheless be deeply regretted by all who know the family. 

The World in 1914

For many years the boiling pot of European politics had simmered away in the background of people’s everyday lives. Militarism was rife throughout Europe and the British Empire was involved in a naval arms race with Germany, a result of the Kaiser’s policy of Welt Politik.

The German leadership wanted to ensure that the nation had it’s ‘place in the sun.’ They wanted to create an overseas colonial empire and move away from their traditional Eurocentric foreign policy as formulated by Bismarck.

The creation of a powerful fleet of warships and such an aggressive foreign policy upset the European balance of power and put Germany on a collision course with Great Britain. The seriousness with which the British Government viewed this issue is illustrated by the abandonment of the age old policy of ‘splendid isolation,’ where Britain remained aloof from conflicting European alliances.

In 1904 Britain put aside her colonial differences with France and entered into an alliance known as Entente Cordiale. She followed this in 1907 with a similar agreement with Russia. Opposing the Entente was the German lead Triple Alliance that tied her to the decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy. However, Italy’s position would change as war approached as the chance to improve her lot at the expense of her traditional enemy, Austria-Hungary, proved too strong to resist. Thus Germany found itself potentially surrounded and facing the real possibility of a war on two fronts.

The early years of the new century had seen several international flashpoints but mutual common sense and a feeling of being not quite ready for war pervaded, allowing the European status quo to carry on.

In the summer of 1914 it was to explode in the most cataclysmic fashion imaginable and destroy millions of people’s lives forever.

The early summer of 1914 was a spectacularly warm one. The Cook family business continued as normal with all three brothers now having settled in to running the company following the death of their father. Down in Brighton at the school, Eddie Cook was busy with his studies and also making a name for himself on the cricket pitch, excelling as the school First Elevens all-rounder. The Brighton School Past & Present magazine reflects on the 1914 cricket season and in the notes on the First Elevens section he is described thus:

R.E. Cook. – Bowls at a good pace and keeps a splendid length; his batting shows a marked improvement; he hits well and with great power.

This was the Cook’s world in early 1914. A successful business had been passed from one generation to another with an heir from the next generation poised to take the business on into the middle of the still new 20^th century.

I have recently found the photograph below which is of King Edward VII memorial parade in May 1910. There are several pictures of this parade but I have never seen this one before and I was delighted to see some familiar faces. Almost in the centre of the photograph, staring directly at the camera, just below the banner of the Crawley Temperance Society is Uncle Ted. The two ladies on the right are Aunt Em and Ted’s wife Laura.

So Eddie’s parents are in the picture is it too much to hope that he is the boy turning round to speak to some friends? Of course we will never know.

Close to the front of this picture are gentlemen from the Crawley Rifle Club including young Bernard Taylor, looking splendid in a bowler hat, who was to join the Royal Flying Corp and win the Croix de Guerre during the Great War.

Everyone in the photograph would have the lives changed forever by the impending catastrophe. 

For Laura

Second Lieutenant R. E. Cook was never far from my thoughts last weekend. On Sunday April 13^th I travelled to Crawley to pay my respects. The previous weekend some of the townspeople were out in force to help prepare The Heroes Walk in the Memorial Park. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, I was unable to make the original planting but on Sunday I was able to rectify this by planting some special poppy seeds that I had brought back with me from my recent trip to Flanders.  I also managed to plant some poppy seeds in various other “Old Crawley” locations.

A hundred years ago in 1914 Eddie Cook was a school boy, the heir to the family building business, and surely must have been a delight to his parents.

Just four short years later, he was dead and 96 years ago his parents long grief was just starting.

I have often thought over the years just how painful this must have been for Ted and Laura. Sometime ago I composed a poem which I have called ‘For Laura.’

From the corner of the road

I saw you turn into the station

Just one more brave boy

Going back to the Front

To stem the German tide

To try and save our Nation.

Your first leave had come and gone

Towards the end, behind the grim exterior,

I saw my boy again

Just one more frightened boy

Having known the unknowable

And knowing that the final onslaught was to come.

Everywhere the talk was of

The Kaiser’s million extra men

I watched the train arrive and then

Came a brief, sad, wave

From my boy

The bravest of the brave.

The train pulled away from the platform

And six weeks later came the telegram

Just one more fallen boy

But mine – my heart, my love, my joy.

To leave us left to think of what might have been –

‘Died of wounds April Thirteenth 1918.

The Army Council express sympathy.’

Ninety-Six Year Ago...

Ninety-six years ago, Eddie Cook is dying of a gun shot wound to the abdomen. In the morning he will be found to be dead on admission at Mendinghem Casualty Clearing Station.

Second Lieutenant R.E. Cook had joined the 11^th Suffolk’s Battalion just in time to endure the Kaiser’s battle in March 1918. Having been fortunate enough to survive he and the remnants of his battalion were moved to the Armentieres sector little suspecting that this would be where the next German hammer blow would fall on 9^th April.

The Suffolks were sent out into a cornfield and told to dig in and keep the enemy at bay to the last man. Somehow some of the battalion escaped and various war maps and diaries show the 11^th Suffolks withdrawing over the Armentieres-Bailleul railway line on the 10/11^th April.

On the 11^th of April Haig issued his famous “Backs to the Wall” proclamation. The 11^th Suffolks war diary says that the battalion was not involved in any major fighting on that day but did set up outposts and sent out patrols. My best guess of what actually happened to Eddie Cook is that he was shot whilst leading a patrol to reconnoitre.

Tomorrow my family and I will be thinking of him. We remember.

The Last Post

Can any words I write do justice to the Last Post? No matter how many times I attend the ceremony it never fails to move me. The dedication shown by the buglers and the city of Ypres is humbling. For that brief moment their names are alive again. Tommy Butler looks across the way at Stan Killick. Charlie King is there underneath one of the arches and back across again, and up the stairs is Joe Johnson. Joe Johnson and his brother William were blown up in a trench together. They survived but sadly they were both killed before the end of the war.

There are over 55,000 names on the Menin Gate of men who disappeared into the mud amidst the carnage and the hell that was the Great War.

We should never forget.