Following Frank
My mother was the youngest of thirteen children. Her eldest brother, Frank, volunteered and was enlisted, only to be killed a couple of years later. Mother recalled as a child lining up to say goodbye to him outside the little terraced house in Liverpool 8 where the family lived. If ever she was asked he was 'Killed in the trenches', she really knew no more than that. A few years back she passed his picture to me for safe keeping as her own end neared. I determined then to fill in the details of his brief service. The little history attached is the best I can do, but I hope gives a glimpse of the mundane, and short, service life of the many citizen soldiers like Frank Goodwin. Mother was able to read it before she joined him. On his death in July 1916 Frank was still three months short of his twentieth birthday.
CONTRIBUTOR
Rob Pritchard
DATE
1914 - 1916
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
16
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
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'Following father's footsteps.'
1 Item
This postcard was published, according to the printed text on the reverse, by ‘Inter-Art Co., Red Lion Square, London, W.C.’, part of the ‘“SENTINEL” Series. / No. 1190. / British Manufacture.’. The scene on the front, drawn by AA Nash (whose name is written on the right of the bottom step), shows a tiny child crawling up the steps of a recruiting office, above the legend ‘“FOLLOWING FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS!”’. A poster propped up against the wall calls for recruits ‘. . . until the enemy is crushed’. || A British patriotic postcard || || A British patriotic postcard || Postcard
Following a white feather
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Photograph of Henry Joseph Williams (seated centre) in France, 1917; in the uniform of (I think) the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. || My grandfather, Harry Williams (seated, centre) was born in Monmouthshire in November 1896 and left school aged twelve to work on a farm. Later he became a boy porter on the Great Western Railway and was still only seventeen when a smartly dressed woman got off the train and gave him a white feather. It affected him for life. He never wanted to join up, or - I think - believed the propaganda, but the emotional pressure on young men was enormous, and he did eventually join the army in September 1915. He was slightly wounded and gassed; I wonder whether this shortened his life. He transmitted one of the telegrams which announced the end of fighting on 11th November 1918. Most survivors didn't talk about the war, it's said, but he did talk about it to me. He said that he and other men used to march in their sleep, holding on to each other, just like the men in Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est'. For the remainder of his life he worked as a railway signalman and took part in the General Strike of 1926. He died at sixty-one. I remember him with enormous love and respect.
'Following in Father's footsteps.'
1 Item
A British patriotic postcard || Pictured on the front of this hand-tinted postcard is a boy wearing a replica British officer’s uniform and apparently smoking a cigarette. The caption above reads, ‘FOLLOWING IN FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS.’. Starting with a flourish, a note handwritten in black ink on the back reads ‘1916 / Flo ?’. Printed within the stamp box are the words ‘ENTIRELY BRITISH MADE’ beneath a logo comprising a diamond containing the letters ‘A C / B’ over which has been superimposed a large letter ‘E’. || || A British patriotic postcard || Postcard