Touching the Past

Some years ago my parents died and after my father’s death I cleared his house, put it up for sale and gathered together box after box of family photographs, old newspaper cuttings, letters and the like. For the past 5 or 6 years they have lain jumbled up in a wardrobe in our spare room and my task for the next few months is to sort them out. I’ve looked at them many times and marvelled at the social history there is – many of the photographs and objects dating back a century. There are also faded photographs of days out I can remember as a child or people who I do not know, sitting on beaches or gazing into the camera. Of all the items, however, there are a number relating to my grandfather, Joe, which I find poignant and exciting. He died in 1953 when I was eight and I only have vague memories of him. I don’t have any great emotional feelings about the items I’m just interested and moved by the social history they display. I grew up in Preston in Lancashire and lived, until I came to Nottingham (to teacher training college) aged about twenty, in a two up two down terraced house. It was a very humble background. My grandfather, Joseph Derbyshire, lived in a similar house in the next street. He had lived there all his life from when he married in the early years of the century. He spent most of his working life as journeyman property repairer and builder – never owning his own business and always, I think being strapped for cash. Like many others of his generation he was, of course, a victim of the great depression of the 30s and lived through two wars. Additionally, his wife, my grandmother, died in childbirth in the early 30s and he struggled to bring up 5 small children – one of them my mother. All this I knew. But when I began rummaging through the boxes I found one or two items that immediately brought a link with him. So, what did I find. Well, there were numerous postcards each with a little popular verse - I’ve seen their like before on the 'Antiques Roadshow' - but these were personal they were from my grandfather to my grandmother and vice versa. They were written during the Great War when he was in France 'doing his bit.' They are brief but poignant. They mention 'little Albert' – the oldest of his children – just starting to walk, they tell of Janey thinking of her husband every night and praying for his safety and wondering if he has a bed to sleep on. They tell of him 'coming home soon on leave'. Many of his have no message apart from 'To my dear Janey' - I understand that serving soldiers were often not allowed to write messages in case it gave anything away to the enemy so Janey had to simply look at the picture and at least know that he was still alive. As I looked at them I reflected upon how different things are today – e-mail, mobile phones and the like – and indeed society’s expectations would not tolerate such a position. But in those days families just accepted this and kept a stiff upper lip. I thought, too, about what it must have meant to Joe and Janey (and millions like them) when he went off to France – a place which to them must have seemed as far away as the moon is to us. A completely unknown world for ordinary people who rarely travelled from their home town. Also in the box were many faded sepia photographs of Joe with Janey and his brothers - all standing proudly posing in their uniforms – ready to march off to war or return to the battle field after leave. There were other photographs too – showing Joe standing with his comrades – all to attention in their camp at the front. And with these were pictures of him sitting with nurses and other wounded soldiers. And finally a lovely sketch of a rather grand building and scribbled on the back 'the hospital where I was treated for my wounds'. My grandfather was always a quite a good drawer - I can remember as small boy sitting drawing with him. But the things that pulled all these together and have given me much food for thought were two handwritten letters. One is a page obviously torn from an exercise book and written in green ink – in a beautiful copperplate hand. The other is an exact copy – dated the day afterwards (March 26th 1919). The first letter is a draft and has some blanks where he has left spaces to put in bits of factual information – his army number, a date etc. The second is a final copy which he obviously copied out the day afterwards. Presumably, there must have been a third copy which he sent. The letter is a begging letter – a plea from a desperate man to the war commissioners in Chelsea for an increase in his war pension so that he can support his family. His pension had been granted at the beginning of March and he was writing at the end of March so he was obviously anxious to improve his award - perhaps they were desperate for food, perhaps the workhouse beckoned. I say that it is an exact copy. This is not strictly true. The first draft says that his wife - Janey - is suffering from a 'nervous breakdown' but by the time that he does the copy on the following day he has changed this to a 'serious illness' and he says 'she is not strong'. For whatever reason he felt that it was not appropriate to use the term 'nervous breakdown' - I wonder why? Stigma? 'Serious illness' sounds more dramatic? Perhaps Janey didn't want to admit her condition. In the end it doesn't really matter but I can understand his anxiety. I have to confess, that although I have no great emotional bond with my grandfather or indeed my family as a whole, whenever I read the letter I get a lump in my throat. He was a very ordinary man of little schooling. By trade a journeyman whitesmith (a worker in tin and pewter). He lived in a tiny house with no hot water or bathroom. He had a beautiful handwriting style and his use of English was impeccable. He was sent off to a far off country to fight in a war that was not of his making, was wounded on two occasions and returned to his country not as a hero (except perhaps to his wife and his neighbours) but had to beg for more money from the government because the injuries he had sustained meant, as he says, that 'I shall be handicapped while ever I live.' So, what did the letter say? (I copy exactly as he wrote): Gentlemen, I Joseph Derbyshire of 5 Rigby Street, Preston, Lancashire most humbly petition you to review my pension of eight shillings and threepence (8/3)per week granted to me on the 7/3/19 for twelve months, for the wounds which I received in action during the war. I don't think this amount satisfactory and I think that you will agree with me when I tell you that I have a Wife (who is suffering from a serious illness and she is not strong) and a Child who is three years old depending on me and I cannot yet follow any employment and particularly my own trade that of a journeyman Black and White smith nor do I think I shall ever be able to do the same at my work as I did before the war. My Regimental address was 23807 Pte. Joseph Derbyshire, 9th Batt. Loyal North Lancs Regt. and I was wounded through the chest and lungs on the 21st Oct. 1916 and I was in Hospital six months before I recovered. Shortly after this I was suffering from dysentery and had to be sent home on the 12th Sept. 1917 to recuperate. I was again wounded on the 27th May 1918 and taken prisoner with a broken leg. Through some cause or other this leg is now shorter that the other and as my work demands me to be on my feet most of the time I shall be handicapped while ever I live. Hoping this will receive your best attention . I remain, Yours humbly Joseph Derbyshire As I read the letter I pictured him in my mind’s eye sitting, all those years ago, carefully scribing his letter. I remembered that he died at 61 – a remarkably young age and I always remember him looking an old man. Indeed I have a photo of him sitting on his back door step with me – it must have been shortly before he died. He looked far older than his 60 years. He had had a very hard life. And I wonder what it must have 'cost' him – to write a begging letter. Today we would not tolerate a pension for war wounds that was only for 12 months. Today our expectations would quite rightly be so different. Would I have written such a humble, polite letter - I think not! (although I sense in it a bit of 'steel' when he uses phrases like 'I think that you will agree with me'). I also remember that he always walked with a pronounced limp – perhaps a left over from his broken leg. And as I read the pages and looked at the creased sepia photographs, I thought too how my grandfather could never in his wildest dreams have imagined that night in March 1919 when he sat down to write his letter that almost a hundred years later his grandson would take his scribbling which have somehow survived the years and the photos of him standing proudly in his uniform and scan them into a computer (what would he have made of that!). And then 'publish' his words on something called the internet so that they could be instantly read by everyone on the planet – should they choose to look. What a very long way we have come with our technology – but our leaders still send young men off to war and then wring their hands when a young soldier is killed. Our morals and ethics lag far behind our technology. But, personal prejudices aside, in sorting out my box I felt that I had somehow fleetingly touched the past.