| CLAVERING
WAR MEMORIAL When the First World War broke out in August 1914, it was with ‘zest and enthusiasm’ that young men all over the country rushed to join up. In the first month, at least four Clavering men volunteered, one of whom may have been Private Pinkington, who six months later was one of only 200 survivors out of 800 men of the Bedford Regiment. In March 1915, home on 48 hours leave straight from the trenches in France, he wore ‘his goat-skin jacket, with his rifle and full equipment, ready to take his place again in the trenches on his return, and he was covered with mud from head to foot - a striking example of what our brave Tommies are like in the trenches and of the hardships they have to endure. He had a thrilling story to tell of British pluck and endurance.’ There were many stirring stories of courage: 31-year-old Henry George Goodwin of the Essex Regiment (Royal Engineers) received the Military Medal in October 1917 for bravery on the Western Front; in 1918 Lance-Corporal W.J. Barltrop had his gallantry as a stretcher-bearer recognised with the DCM. But the war also brought its train of sad telegrams to this remote village. One of the first was in October 1915 when Private George Law, KRRC, son of Frank Law, was killed in action on the Western Front. The eldest son of Elias and Emily Cakebread of Coldhams Farm, 23-year-old Private George Cakebread was another casualty, killed in action in July 1916. Private Walter Matthews, Royal Fusiliers, aged 22 of Starlings Green, also died in action in November. |
Drawing by Wendy Upson |
| The year
1917 was full of bad news: Private Frank Whyman, son of Nathan Whyman of
Middle Street, serving in the Notts & Derbys, died at a casualty clearing
station in May. Aged 38, he left behind a widow and child. In November
there was the loss, aged 26, of Pioneer Lance-Corporal William Kemp of
Hill Green, having served in France for three years. He was described as
very popular in his regiment, the Queens Westminster Rifles, of ‘cheery
disposition… one of the best men… a brave and gallant soldier.’ He was
walking along a trench when a shell came over and killed him instantly. In
April 1918 George Squires’ 18-year-old son, Private Hubert Squires of the
Sherwood Foresters died of wounds, and news came also of the loss of an
Essex Regiment man, Private Herbert Whyman of Church End. Over the course
of less than a year Mr and Mrs Alfred Wombwell lost two sons. As the war
drew to its close, news came of other lost sons - Private Frederick
Matthews aged 19 of the Royal West Kents, a member of the church choir,
formerly stockman for Philip Rowe -his father was still in service in
Salonika; and Mechanic Edgar Clarke, a popular 18 year old who had just
joined the RAF, caught by the other scourge of the age, influenza, and
died in military hospital. When the end of the war came on 11 November
1918, the celebrations were overlain in villages throughout the land by
tragedies such as these. There were 28 men who never came back to
Clavering, their names enshrined on our war memorials, and others
unrecorded, whose lives were ever after blighted by gas, war wounds,
trauma. At the end of a century which saw so much war and waste,
Remembrance Day still matters if it is also an international Day of Peace.
The ‘light-footed lads’ deserve no less. © Jacqueline Cooper 2003
Research by Robert Pike
robert.pike@ntlworld.com |