First World War Folk Tales Read online

  In memory of:

  Edward Victor French (1887–1965), miller and farmer from Merriott in Somerset and Taffy Thomas’ grand- father, who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915

  &

  Archibald ‘Archie’ Oldham (1888–1958) of Heywood, Lancashire and Helen Watts’ great-grandfather, who served as a private in the 1st Manchester Regiment from 1914–18 and who was wounded by a bullet in the neck while fighting in Palestine.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Introduction

  The Great War of 1914–18

  Tales from the Great War

  One: Legends of the Fallen

  The Rock Climbers

  The Hartest Florins

  Billy Peasecod’s Harp

  The Strange Meeting

  The Black Chair

  Two: Supernatural Sightings

  The Angels of Mons

  An Angel’s Guiding Light

  The Vision of the Virgin

  The Brother Who Returned

  The Haunted Hills

  Three: Tales of Extraordinary Folk

  Unsung Heroes

  From Battlefield to Movie Screen: The Story of Sergeant York

  Legend of the Skies: The Story of Gilbert Insall

  The Story of Edith Cavell

  What Goes Around Comes Around

  Four: Humour from a Dark Place

  The Photo of the Girl I Left Behind Me

  Underground Mutton

  The Chef Who Saved Thousands of Lives

  Good News and Bad News

  Jack’s Wager

  Five: When Truth Becomes Legend

  The Tale of the Accrington Pals

  Keeping a Promise to the Kaiser

  The Poppy Lady

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Illustrations by Steven Gregg.

  ‘Only Remembered’ traditional English version by John Tams, lyrics reproduced by permission of John Tams. ‘Old Brown’ based on a traditional rhyme told to us by Albert ‘Nabs’ Smith. ‘The Rushbearing’ by William Wordsworth (1770–1850), written in 1815 – out of copyright. ‘Saint Oswald’s Day’ hymn words by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (1851–1920). ‘Strange Meeting’ by Wilfred Owen (1893–1918), written in 1918 – out of copyright. ‘War’ (Rhyfel) by Ellis Evans (1887–1917), translated by Alan Llwyd for Out of the Fire of Hell: Welsh Experience of the Great War 1914–1918 in Prose and Verse (Gomer Press, 2008), reprinted by permission of Alan Llwyd. The story of Gilbert Insall based on the original text ‘Gilbert Stuart Martin Insall and Thomas Ham Donald’ (from the archive Tales of the VC) from www.europeana1914–1918.eu/en/contributions/ 5375#prettyPhoto – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence (CC BY-SA 3.0). ‘The Photo of the Girl I Left Behind Me’ song lyrics written and composed by Billy Merson (1881–1947). ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ traditional folk song also known as ‘Brighton Camp’, lyrics first published in Skillern’s Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1799 by Thomas Skillern, derived from the traditional song ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’, lyrics first published in The Charms of Melody, Dublin, Ireland, issue no. 72, printed in Dublin from 1791. ‘It’s A Long, Long Way To Tipperary’ by Jack Judge (1872–1938) and Harry Williams, written in 1912. ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Lt Col John McCrae (1872–1918), written in 1915, first published in the Punch magazine in December 1915.

  Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this collection but, where this has not been possible, the authors would like to apologise for any cases of unintentional copyright transgression and would like to hear from any copyright holders not acknowledged.

  Prologue

  Only Remembered

  Fading away like the stars in the morning,

  Losing their light in the glorious sun,

  Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,

  Only remembered for what we have done.

  Only the truth in the fife we have spoken,

  Only the seed that in life we have sown,

  These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten,

  Only remembered for what we have done.

  Who’ll sing the anthem and who’ll tell the story,

  Will the line hold will it scatter and run,

  Shall we at last be united in glory,

  Only remembered for what we have done?

  Traditional English / John Tams

  Introduction

  THE GREAT WAR OF 1914–18

  War has always played a powerful part in the story of our country’s history. Every battle, every campaign – from Hastings to Culloden, from the Crimean to the Falklands – has its own story and each has something to teach us about our relationships with our fellow human beings, about our ambitions and our dreams, our strengths and our weaknesses, and our capacity for love and for hate.

  But of all the wars which have affected our nation, it is perhaps the Great War of 1914–18 which has left the biggest mark … and it truly was a ‘great’ war. Never before had so many nations, from all over the globe, come up against one another at the same time; never before had armed forces of such numbers clashed on so many fronts and on so many battlefields; and never before had the impact of a war been so powerful. More than twenty-seven countries, including men and women from Britain’s colonies all over the world, took part in the war and by the end of it more than 16 million people were dead (about half of those being civilians), another 21 million had been wounded, and the balance of power in Europe – as well as the country borders which formed the European map – had been shifted completely.

  One hundred years on, as we remember what happened during those four long years, the First World War continues to stir up strong feelings. We are shocked by the millions of lives which were lost and it is hard not to question the tactics chosen by the generals who, from behind the safety of their desks in their headquarters, made decisions which so often put the lives of men fighting on the front line at risk. We find it hard to believe that so much of the war was fought out of filthy, mud-ridden trenches – and that soldiers could be stuck there for months on end, thousands of them dying in order to advance just a few metres into enemy territory. We find it difficult to understand how wave upon wave of troops could be sent ‘over the top’ to their deaths – hundreds of soldiers at a time being ordered to climb out of the trenches and advance straight into enemy fire across no-man’s-land.

  Yet while the First World War was horrific, brutal and bloody, it was also crucial in terms of stabilising Europe, redefining the European map and preventing any one country from becoming too powerful. It was a fight for democracy in which Britain and her Allies (and then the United States of America when they joined the war in April 1917) were battling against the autocratic, military threat being imposed by Germany and Austro-Hungary, which also brought about the downfall of Tsarist rule in Russia. Crucially, for Britain, it was a fight for liberty and those who survived it were proud to be part of a nation which had defeated its enemy by pulling together and standing firm.

  TALES FROM THE GREAT WAR

  People remember their history as stories, recounting their experiences, their feelings, their hopes, fears and dreams in tales sometimes written down and often shared by word of mouth. The stories they choose to pass on are a restatement of our cultural identity and can reveal more about the feelings of folk than any history book.

  When ‘the last fighting Tommy’, Harry Patch, died at the age of 111 in 2009, there were those who feared that this also meant the demise of the tales from the First World War trenc
hes. They could not be more wrong, for folk tales have a life of their own, giving them a unique kind of immortality. Thousands of stories, told both during the years of 1914–18 and after the conflict had ended, have survived as fragments entrusted to relatives in spidery handwriting in letters home and remembered through oral anecdotes, such as those shared when grandchildren discover an old tin hat or a gas mask.

  These are just slivers, precious scraps of information linking decades and generations. However, with love and care, Helen Watts (an experienced author and editor) and Taffy Thomas (a storyteller who has spent his life immersed in folklore and popular culture) have worked to reconstitute these shards into retellable tales for the current and future generations of historians and storytellers.

  The diaries and the letters home reveal the narrative of the struggle and something of the feelings of those who were there in the trenches. The poetry and the songs from the popular entertainment of the day – music halls and variety theatres – reveal something of the feelings of relatives and survivors on the Home Front. All are included in this unique collection.

  As you absorb the tales of heroic men and women who changed the course of history, remember that their diaries and their stories show that most of them didn’t consider themselves unusual or heroic; just ordinary folk who answered the call. Cling to the words of George Bernard Shaw, who commented:

  War does not decide who is right but who is left.

  THE ROCK CLIMBERS

  The English county of Cumbria has a long history of legend and folklore. Its beautiful, often wild and rugged landscape, with Lakeland as the jewel in its crown, is not surprisingly a natural source of inspiration for storytellers and writers. This was certainly the case in Victorian times, when Lakeland became a popular destination and place of residence for poets and storytellers like the great William Wordsworth, John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter. However, it was also during this period – a time when adventure and exploration was very much encouraged – that Lakeland also became a venue for a new recreational sport: that of rock climbing. The following story from the early twentieth century is proof that these two Cumbrian passions – mountaineering and creating and telling stories – did not suddenly cease with the end of the eighteenth century and the onset of the Great War.

  In the years leading up to 1900, two young men loved to test their skill, strength and courage together on the rock faces that grace the likes of Scafell, Skiddaw and Helvellyn. With the start of the First World War, Lord Kitchener pointed his finger and one of the pair answered the call, heading for France, Belgium and the horrors of trench warfare. His friend continued on his days off to rock-climb, although it had become a lonelier and more dangerous activity, as any solo climber knows.

  One sunny day, after a particularly tough route on Scafell Crag, he was walking down a gully known as Hollow Stones, when he heard a cheery whistling. He was delighted to see the smiling face of his soldier friend coming towards him, presumably home on leave, going up to do the same route he himself had just conquered. They chatted of what they might do when the war was over. Then, parting, the pair agreed to meet up later at the Wasdale Head Inn for a pint.

  The soldier never showed up for that drink. A couple of days later, the climber heard that his friend had fallen at Passchendaele, at exactly the time they had met in the beautiful sunshine of a Lakeland summer.

  THE HARTEST FLORINS

  On the Sunday nearest to 11 November every year, people gather at war memorials to remember the dead of the two world wars. There is probably a war memorial somewhere near to you, and if so you will know that war memorials usually take the form either of a statue of a soldier, or of a column of stone engraved with the names of the dead. However, if you were to go to the war memorial in the village of Hartest in West Suffolk, you wouldn’t know you were at a war memorial unless you had read or heard this story.

  For a start you’d be in the bar of The Crown, the village pub! If you investigated the room carefully, you might just spot some coins nailed to a wooden beam: twenty-four florins and a farthing to be exact. Even without any names to accompany them, these coins are this village’s war memorial. This story explains why.

  In 1914, the men of the village of Hartest – and the boys who looked old enough to pass as men (and boys often did pretend they were old enough) – volunteered to join the British Army.

  The night before these brave young men left to go to war in France and Belgium, they took their mothers, wives and girlfriends for a drink in the village pub. As they said their sad farewells, each woman nailed a coin to the beam, telling her man that when he returned home safely, he could take that coin to buy enough food and drink to have a week’s rest before returning to work on the farm. (Amazingly, a florin – worth about ten pence – would have done that, a hundred years ago.) The one woman who couldn’t afford a florin nailed a farthing (a quarter of an old penny).

  Thankfully, if you visit this place today and look closely at the same beam, you will see that there are more holes in the wood than there are coins, one for every soldier who returned. But the fact that there are twenty-five coins remaining shows that, even in that small village, there were twenty-five good men who never returned to their families – a sad but true story.

  The late Albert ‘Nabs’ Smith – a Suffolk forester from the village of Chillesford near Orford – regaled Taffy Thomas on many occasions with the following rhyme as they supped Adnams Ale in the bar of his sister Vera’s pub in Butley, The Oyster Inn.

  Old Brown

  Old Brown sat in the Rose and Crown talking about the war.

  He dipped his finger in the froth and then began to draw.

  These are the Allied lines he said, and this is the German foe.

  The potman he called time. Old Brown shouted Whoa!

  Do you want us to lose the war? Do you want us to lose the war?

  To call time now it would be a sin,

  Another two pints we could have been in Berlin!

  Do you want us to lose the war?

  BILLY PEASECOD’S HARP

  Since the seventeenth century, the people of Grasmere, Cumbria, have picked rushes from the lake, decorated them with wild flowers and paraded them through the village to St Oswald’s church on Rushbearing Day. The Grasmere parish magazine of 1890 describes the bearings as follows:

  The rushbearings are varied in device; simple poles, crosses, hearts, wreaths are all common and among others have been wont to appear a tall pole with a serpent twisted about it, a little Moses in the bushes and a harp, designs which probably at one time conveyed scripture lessons or bore witness to some old legend.

  Over the years the custom has attracted many different visitors and followers, one of whom was William Wordsworth, who wrote the following passage about the Rushbearing in 1815:

  The Rushbearing

  Closing the sacred Book which long has fed

  Our meditations, give way to day

  Of annual joy one tributary lay;

  This day, when forth by rustic music led,

  The Village children, while the sky is red

  With evening lights, advance in long array

  Through the still churchyard each with garland gay,

  That, carried sceptre-like, o’ertops the head

  Of the proud bearer. To the wide church door,

  Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore

  For decoration in the Papal time,

  The innocent procession softly moves:

  The spirit of Laud is pleased in the Heaven’s pure clime,

  And Hooker’s voice the spectacle approves.

  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  The following short tale centres on a Grasmere lad who took part in the Rushbearing before going off to war.

  William ‘Billy’ Warwick Peasecod was born in 1898. As a boy he became a member of the church choir at Grasmere’s parish church, St Oswald’s. Like most of his friends, Billy participated in the Rushbearing proce
ssions, carrying a bearing year after year, throughout the first decade of the twentieth century.

  However, Billy’s bearing was very different from all the others. As he was of Irish descent, it was decided that the local carpenter should create for him a new bearing in the shape of the harp of David. Billy’s mother then decorated the intricate wooden structure with rushes and flowers, rowing out far on to Grasmere Lake to collect lilies.

  For several years Billy proudly carried his harp in the Rushbearing. But then, in 1915, one year into the Great War, he joined the Border Regiment as a signaller. His regiment was posted to France where, on 5 November 1917, Billy was killed, aged nineteen.

  No one could face carrying Billy’s harp in the Rushbearing after that, and it fell into disrepair. However, for the Millennium Rushbearing, Billy’s successors in the O’Neil family invited the local carpenter to make a replica of Billy’s harp. The bearing was decorated once again with lilies, and was carried in the parade that year by Terry and Sarah O’Neil.

  As the procession passed by Taffy Thomas’ famous Storyteller’s Garden in the centre of Grasmere, this story of Billy and his harp was told in his memory.

  Each and every year, as they celebrate Rushbearing Day, the people of Grasmere pause their procession at the village green in order to sing the following hymn:

  Saint Oswald’s Day

  Today we come from farm and fell,

  Wild flowers and rushes green we twine,