Lest we forget

In late July 2108, I found myself well off the tourist trail, in a little visited Northern french village trying to locate the village cemetery while aware that I had a train to catch, but with no mobile signal and only school boy French

How did this occur and why was I there? Please read on.

Family Trees

I have for many years taken the self appointed role of family genealogist. All families have one, and over the years I have found it quite fun to connect the family tree together, and explore  the lesser known by-ways of my and my wife's family.

Nowadays this is relatively easy with the internet and sites like ancestry.com. What used to the task of crawling through dusty corridors looking for birth certificates, can now be done with a click of the button. Not only is it easy to find birth and deaths, but with the census information you can sometimes eek out all sort of other information, such as where they lived and worked.

This really brings the character alive and you can create a quite compelling narrative. For example I found one of my Mother-in-laws relative was transported to Australia (insert joke here). Via the power of the internet you could find what he was convicted of, the ship he was sent on and  the fact he never made it, dying on route (so putting the kibosh on going to Australia to discover long lost relatives.)

However the one story that has always fascinated me the most is that of Edward Stephen Edgerton.

Edward is related to me through my fathers side and is in fact my great uncle. He was born in Walsall and grew up probably thinking that he would live and die in that industrial black country town.

It was not to be. World events which he had little control were moving which would change and tragically end his life.

I am talking of course about World War 1.

Edward was 25 when the war broke out.  In 1911 he was listed as a Saddletree maker which was  probably not a lucrative job, but a skilled trade nonetheless in an area renowned at the time for saddle and leather working (Walsall football club is still nicknamed the saddlers). Edward had 4 living Sisters and 1 baby brother at this time, but I feel that it was his brother Joseph, 2 years older than him, who he was closest to.

On the 9th December 1915,  Joseph joined up. His choice of regiment was a strange one, eschewing the local regiments and pals brigades, he joined one of the Britain's elite and oldest regiments, the Coldstream guards.

Edward was already in the Army, enlisting in Februray 1915, but again the choose of service was unusual. Instead of the normal foot soldier, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corp, rising to be a corporal, attached to No 25 General Hospital based around the Calais region

The question is therefore why Edwards decided to transfer to his brothers regiment, the Coldstream guards ,in October 1918, only 2 months before end of the war.

Did he feel he was not doing 'his bit'? Was his head turned by his older brother and his battle honours and stories? Was there a sibling rivalry between them, which made transferring inevitable? We will never know, why he did it, but what we do know that in Oct 1918 he found himself on the front line in Northern France near the town of Quesnoy, taking part in the great dash as the German army front line collapsed.

Unlike his service in the R.A.M.C, we can via regiments records track his progress across France

- November 2 , to Ruesnes ( 2000 yards west of Quesnoy )

- November 3, was used to begin the offensive enemy bombing west of Villers -Pol , the objective of the attack was the high ground east of the village. " We crossed the Rhonelle and there was a strong battle in melee in a thick darkness. At 13h , we were digging trenches on the west bank of the river were sporadic shelling. " 

- November 4 , 1h, under a heavy enemy barrage , our attack was stopped on the east side of Villers -Pol where there was gunfire , intense bombing. Refueling arrived in the evening but the night was very cold and wet in the trenches.

On November 4th 1918, he was declared missing and later found dead. It was only 7 days before the ceasefire was declared.

Reading the diaries entries and already knowing the ending, feel like one of those movies where you know the final scene, but cannot look away anyway. Also it raise so many questions. Why with the war already won, was so much fighting continuing? Why did he join an frontline regiment? Was he close to his brother when he died?(Joseph lived on to 1977, despite the 3 years of active service on the frontline). How did his Father and mother receive the news, while probably at the same time as the joy of the armistice was announced?

Some of these questions will never get answered, but what we do know that his body and a number of other causalities were interred in a small French cemetery in the french town of Frasnoy

The pilgrimage begins

For more I learned about Edward Edgerton, the more I felt a connection and I made myself  a promise that I would some point visit his grave. In hindsight this should of been as easy, just driving down to the channel ports, hoping on a Ferry or Eurotunnel. However I am never a great one for road trips and I have that  inbuilt  British thing about driving on the continent in that the 26 miles of water represents a psychological and a physical barrier At one point, I entertained the notion of going with my father, but his frailty and my timidness never seemed to make that a reality and my father passed on well before I was ready

However the hundred year anniversary of his death and the ending of the great war meant I had much greater reason thatn before to go. So after  discussion with my wife we hatched, in the words of Blackadder, a cunning plan. We would combine the trip with a family holiday. We would find somewhere to stay in Northern France or Southern Belgium. Visit on the way out or the way back and in between spend a relaxing few days seeing the sites.

The first problem came finding somewhere to stay. This part of the world is a long way removed from the usual holiday spots on the Normandy coast or in the hills of the Ardenne. Northern France away from the coast is flat, while Southern Belgium is more industry than recreational.  As a consequence, searches for holiday accommodation was difficult. However eventually we did located a holiday complex situated next to a large man made lake, so in late we set off on the long journey to the channel, and to brave the French and Belgium motorways.

We decided to visit on the way back. Obviously we were time constrained because we had a Eurotunnel connection booked, but it looked like we had plenty of time to stop off, find the cemetery, pay our respects and then catch our train.

I had however assumed, rather naively, that finding a cemetery in a small village would be easy. I had looked at the location so often on Google maps, that I was confident of locating it. It turned out to be a little more difficult.

First problem was just getting there. Frasnoy is, and probably ever was, well off the beaten track.  Google maps did a great job getting us so far, but then we ended up going many KM on small  non-descript French roads. It was also complicated by the fact google maps directed us to the larger Frasnoy communal Cemetery in le Quesnoy. I realised this rather late as we were seemingly headed in the wrong direction and instead set google maps to direct us to the center of Frasnoy.

During our week in Belgium we had got complacent with mobile coverage, with high level of 4G. Northern France was a different story, and as we entered Frasnoy we found ourselves in a mobile internet black spot. Unfortunately I had also not printed off the map of Frasnoy with the cemetary map location marked. We were well and truly lost.

In the end we meandered to the central square and church, guessing that the cemetery would be close at hand. It was not to be, and with time running out, we had to resort to asking directions. Unfortunately my French is pretty appalling and unlike Belgium, English is not widely understood  (If only my French teacher had warned me there would be days like this). However both my wife's and eldest daughters French is pretty good. So I sent them off to ask a old gentleman the directions. This he promptly did, the only problem was after leaving him, my wife realized that his droite and gauche were actually opposite to what his hand were saying. So we had to take a guess. We were wrong.

Central Frasnoy and church with a memorial to the English soldiers who liberated Frasnoy on the day Edward died

Collecting spring water, probably the same one used for hundred of years

Add caption

After driving 5 minutes, we realised we were not going anywhere, so headed back to the center and parked in the church car park and sent my wife out for new directions. She came back pointing up a road next to the church and we decided to set out on foot. We were just about to give up hope, when I saw just over a rise the unmistakable silhouettes of tombstones. We hand found it!!

We've found it

Paying respect

I had sort of assumed that the cemetery would be a small affair, but it was in fact quite sizeable and consisted of the kind of monuments and mausoleums common in Catholic cemeteries. Still tucked in the far right corner were a row of immaculately maintained white gravestones standing up from the dark gravel like teeth. Among them, was Edwards Edgerton gravestone, with his Regiment, serial number and date of his death.

I had assumed that we would have an hour here. Unfortunately  due to our shenanigans we had far less time. So I gave a little speech to the girls about Edward's life and death, in the hope they will not forget, planted a small cross and poppy and left a note in French about Edward life and thanking the residents of Frasnoy for looking after him. Then it was time to go.

I would of liked to of visited the far larger German cemetery on the way out, but time was against us, so it was back on the Chunnel and back home.

In search of the graves

Edward's Grave

 In memorium

After reading, researching about Edward, and for so many years planning to go to his grave, I had mixed feelings after visiting. There was a sense of achievement of finally getting their, mixed with a bit of a disappointment of not having more time to spend. I would also of liked more time exploring the area

There was also some sadness about why I was here at all.

Edward's brother, Joseph died in 1977, when I was about 14 years old. Now I look back I believe I may well of visited him, when my Grandmother, his and Edwards sister, took me long bus trips across Walsall to visit various elderly relatives. If he had been alive today, I would of had many questions about him and his brother. However a 14 year old boy has little interests in various old relatives and so it was with me.  It is only now that I appreciate and have some understanding of his and countless others sacrifice.

As we reach the 100 year anniversary of the great war, we are reaching the point, when even the longest lived were mere children when the  war ended. We have already lost all those who directly took part, and it will not be long until there are no living memories left to tell there stories 1st hand. Today the task of making sure that we do not forget is passed to my generation, and one day that responsibility will be passed on.

There are already some people who seem intent on subverting this task and the symbol the poppy represents and subverting it to something that glorifies war and not the symbol of refret and loss that it is meant to be. The responsibility to ensure that the symbol remains pure is one which we must not relinquish.

I don't believe Edward, went to war for glory, or some other jingoistic cause. Edward went to war because he felt it was his duty, because he wanted to be with his brother and friends, and because it was the right thing to do. He did not die gloriously, but just another casualty in a foreign field, one of many. What his last thought were, we will never know, but I'm pretty sure that it was not a wish to be consigned to a foreign field, far away from the streets he grew up on.

I, like many other people with similar stories, keep his memory alive, not to glorify war but as part of his legacy of duty that he passed down. It is so that future generations should not have to shoulder the same burden.

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.

There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

John William Streets (killed and missing in action on 1 July 1916 aged 31)

Frasnoy Poppy's