Category: World War I

Private Henry John Lusty Date of Death: 08/07/1916 Age: 36

Regiment/Service: Army Ordnance Corps

Grave Reference: F. 600. Cemetery: WOOLWICH CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Son of John and Sarah Lusty; husband of Florence Lusty, of Meadow End, Dudbridge, Stroud, Glos. Born at Stroud.

I, do make Oath, that I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George the Fifth, His Heirs, and Successors, and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend His Majesty, His Heirs, and Successors, in Person, Crown and Dignity, against all enemies, and will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, and of the Generals and Officers set over me.

So help me God.

It was like something out of A.S. Byatt
or Marina Warner
or Our Mutual Friend:
The names on the war memorial in Rodborough Church included LUSTY H. G.
(IN GRATEFUL AND LOVING MEMORY OF THE GALLANT MEN WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE FOR LIBERTY AND FREEDOM IN THE GREAT WAR
They were a wall unto us both by night and by day),
Yet when I went to my notes of the war dead
taken from the Rodborough Commoner,
there was no mention anywhere of LUSTY that I could see,
And it is a name I know well –
My gran lived next door to a Mr. and Mrs. Lusty
in Leonard Stanley in the 1960’s:
Mr. Lusty was a figure from another age,
My brother and myself thought he had fought in the Boer War,
Not the Great War – the name Lusty appears
on the village war memorial –
But my Granny Butler (nee Bingham) would have known
LUSTY H. J. too – she lived near the canal in Cainscross,
And he was just around the corner at Meadow End, Dudbridge.

My gran grew quite fat in later life –
My brother and myself were told by my mum that women
of my gran’s generation had eaten lots of cream cakes
to console themselves for the lost generation of their menfolk,
But I would sit with gran in the late 1950s,
While she would late night poke the soot
and as the sparks flashed and then died,
She would look at me, and plaintively sing to me:
“Old soldiers never die, they only fade away.”

Stroud News 14th July 1916

Dudbridge Recruit’s Suicide at Woolwich

An inquest was held at Woolwich, London, on Monday morning, touching the death of Henry John Lusty, a brickworker, of Meadow End, Dudbridge.

The widow identified the body, and said her husband left home on Friday morning, he having received notice to report himself at Bristol for the purpose of joining the Army. Witness last saw him alive at Dudbridge Station, when he left for Bristol, appearing quite cheerful. He had lately suffered from influenza and only resumed work a fortnight ago. The blood-stained knife produced belonged to her husband.

Robert Curley, a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, stationed at Woolwich deposed to finding the deceased man’s body lying against a tree on Green Hill Slopes, near the Royal Artillery Barracks. There was a wound in the throat and the man held a knife (produced) in his right hand.

It was stated that the deceased should have reported himself at the Royal Ordnance Corps, Woolwich, having been passed for garrison duty, the day before he was found with his knife cut.

The jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity.”

(With thanks to Chas Townley for pointing me in the direction of this story and starting me off; and to Bonzo the bike-man legend for directing me to Meadow End; I have resolved to take a remembrance cross up to Private Lusty’s gravestone at Woolwich either this year or early next. I might etch a few lines from Sassoon or Owen on to the cross, too.)

REMEMBRANCE DAY
It started as a temporary structure,
An edifice of wood and plaster,
A “Cenotaph”, a monument to the dead,
In Whitehall, November, 1919;
An outpouring of grief and garlands,
Bouquets, wreaths, flowers, silence and tears
Ornamented the stark, new monument,
Until Lutyen’s Portland Stone Cenotaph
Was ready for November 1920.

Meanwhile, across the Channel, near Arras,
Four bodies were exhumed and one chosen,
For the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior;
War memorials followed throughout the land,
Cemeteries in Northern France and Belgium,
With wistful battlefield tours and visits,
As the dead were resurrected with mediums,
Or long, uniform rows of uniform gravestones.

At home – depression, riots and the dole,
The Charleston and the Jazz Age;
This was when the British Legion was formed,
A fusion of groups, led by Earl Haig,
18,000 members, 300,000 by 1929,
With 8 million people wearing a poppy,
(Cotton three pence, silk, a shilling);
The Empire Field of Remembrance followed,
With artificial poppies and wooden crosses,
Whilst all across the entire country:
The solemnity of Remembrance Day,
A British tradition formed in the twenties,
When there were just 30 “Thankful Villages”,
Those parishes where all the men returned,
But everywhere else, war memorials:
Crosses, village halls, public hospitals,
Parks, recreation grounds, statues,
Or ornate architectural rolls of honour,
But wherever, whoever and whatever,
Every November 11th, only a tubercular cough,
A train buffering up or railway whistle
Would disturb the funereal silence,
Until the BBC unified the whole nation,
In an act of collective radio remembrance;

The 1930s saw more innovation:
The British Legion replacing soldiers,
When parading on Armistice Day,
And 5,000 white poppies appeared,
As fear of another war cast its shadow,
Although 40 million red poppies
Were worn in that same year, 1938, –
But one year later, on September 3rd,
The air raid sirens started.

Armistice Day’s redemptive power waned
In the Second World War, with new deaths and wounds
For a new generation, as well as the old,
And even though half a million men still received disability allowances,
From the consequences of the first conflict,
Objections were made to the continuance
Of Armistice Day, although muted observation
Drifted on through the six years of the new struggle,
Until, post-war, the Day was switched to Sunday,
To the pleasure of C of E traditionalists;
But the collective work time silent bonding
Of the secular working week was impaired and attenuated,
As Remembrance became part of the 1950s –
When it always rained on drab Sunday streets.

The swinging sixties saw further social changes,
CND, The Cold War, “O What a Lovely War!”
The threat of nuclear war, a new multiculturalism,
The end of Empire, the death of Churchill,
The Kings Road annexation of Lord Kitchener,
The dandy appropriation of scarlet uniforms,
Left wing, long- haired students wearing army greatcoats,
Mods sporting the Union Jack and the RAF roundel,
It all seemed to mark the end of an era:
Many believed Remembrance Day would just wither away,
Even while so many men above the age of fifty or so
(I can still see you, dad),
Would spend a November Sunday morning
In front of a black and white TV screen,
Watching the broadcast from Whitehall,
Some still shedding tears.

But “The Great War” series on television,
With a revival for the War Poets,
With new anthologies and syllabuses,
Coupled with the visible loss of the Great War generation,
All meant a new upsurge in interest –
The growth of Great War battlefield tours,
Commemorative anniversaries,
The boom in DIY family history;
Then Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
New conflicts affecting new generations,
Led to the reintroduction of silence
On each November 11th from 2002:
Once more, a display of public emotion,
A new collective British self-discipline,
Signifying that for some, Remembrance Day
Maintained continuities in a changing world,
Whilst for others, it marked a new militarisation of our society,
An unprecedented militarisation of civil society:
I always used to wear a red poppy,
To remember the sacrifices of my grand father and my dad,
Then I took to wearing a red and a white,
Now just a white.

My mother was born on Bastille Day,
July 14th, 1915;
Her mum and dad had met at church,
In the choir of St John the Baptist and St Helen,
Up on Church Hill, Wroughton,
Just below the ridgeway, high above Swindon.

I never met my grand-father, he died before my birth,
A sensitive man, he loved his daughter so much,
That he cried his eyes out at her wedding in 1938,
And had to go home early.
But I have his hymnbook even now,
Inscribed ‘H.E. Wheeler, Elcombe’ –
He lived in that small hamlet,
Walking into Swindon, to work in the railway factory.

I have no memories of my grand-mother either:
It must have been a difficult year, 1951, for mum,
My birth, her mother’s death, dad back from Burma,
In body if not in mind,
And on the reserve list for Korea.

But on the day of her birth,
Edward Thomas wrote ‘For These’,
His reasons for enlisting for the front,
And as my mother came into the world,
So Thomas passed his medical,
‘Stripped, weighed, measured and made to hop around the room on each foot’
(Edward Thomas From Addlestrop to Arras A Biography
Jean Moorcroft Wilson);
And as my grandparents celebrated,
So Helen Thomas, believing her husband had gone to London for work,
Was in shock at the news: “No, no, no,” ‘was all I could say;’ “not that.”

I made my mum a collage of Thomas’ poem for her birthday:
The third stanza became her later life:
‘A garden I need never go beyond,
Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one
Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:
A spring, a brook’s bend, or at least a pond.’

I think of this every year in July and August,
And now, as I write these lines,
Waiting for the rain to stop,
I see mum and dad now,
Sitting by the pond in late summer,
Sunflowers high above their heads,
Waving me goodbye.

Coroner’s Report, 1916

The link above takes you to transcripts of the coroner’s report, 1916.

Please read below as well … this is an astonishing story from WW1

‘My beloved fiancée, Dorothy Beard, aged 18, of Burleigh, Brimscombe, and I, Archibald Clutterbuck Knee, aged 25, of West End, Minchinhampton, being both of sound mind, are writing this, our last will and testament together, this night of August 27th, 1916.
You, who are reading this note, have just found it lodged beneath my cap, and Dorothy’s hat and umbrella in the reeds by the side of Iron Gates Pond, Longfords Lake, Longfords Mill, Avening. You will see our bodies in the water. We hope there is no wind or rain tonight which might erase our words or blow our letters beneath the waters.
I, Dorothy Beard, have worked as a weaver at Evans and Sons in Brimscombe since school. Archie has courted me these last three years. We are engaged to be married but shall go to Heaven hand in hand as all but husband and wife. Our watery grave is but a passage to another world free from pain and suffering. We shall be at peace there.
I used to be a weaver too, until I volunteered for the army on June 14th, 1916. That was only some two months ago but it feels like a lifetime. I am now Private Knee, number 29386, 15th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. Or I shall be for a few minutes longer.
I came home on leave about five days ago after an attack of German measles and now my nerves are bad again. They come and go but I fear they are here to stay. I can’t face going back to camp at Chisledon and I won’t desert. But I can’t face the Front. I know I shall be killed or worse, break down.
So that is why we are leaving this life together. I couldn’t face a life without my Archie. We have talked it through and we are resolved to drown ourselves, face to face, mouth to mouth and with our lips pressed together. We shall breathe our last breaths together.
When you find our bodies, you should find a return GWR ticket to Chisledon, my military pass and 11 shillings and sixpence in my purse. All I will have is my wristlet watch, my gold bangle, my necklet and my brooch. Our wordly goods are of no worth to us. Instead we await our Saviour with our final baptism. Our last glimpses of wordly life will be of each other.
We apologise for our love, but I am certain that I shall be killed or worse as I have said. And I cannot face a lifetime of loneliness without my Archibald as I have said. We have decided to leave this Vale of Tears and find Salvation with the Prince of Peace in Heaven.
The time has come to tie the bridal knot with the tailcoat of Archibald’s mackintosh and commit our bodies and souls to Jesus. These are our final words.
Signed Dorothy Beard and Archibald Clutterbuck Knee 3.30 am August 27th 1916′
(Imagined by me, September 2014)

When the bodies were found, Dorothy’s watch had stopped at 11 minutes to four o’clock. The manuscript has only just come to light.

He took her by the lily white hand,
He kissed both cheek and chin,
They walked down to the waterside,
And they gently wandered in.

Their bodies lay intertwined,
Two lovers in death conjoined,
Imagine Hamlet and Ophelia,
Lying drowned together,
Beneath the fronds and pond side ferns,
In the Iron Gates Pond at Longfords,
Lying hand in hand,
Instead of alone in No Man’s Land.

Monday September 1st 2014-08-31
It was a warm, damp and humid sort of day
When I caught the number 46 bus to Nailsworth:
I walked past the Weighbridge Inn (scene of the inquest),
Then along to Longfords Mill,
Searching for the Iron Mills Pond and the suicide spot.
I had a chat with a couple of friendly residents:
‘It must be down there, towards Iron Mills.
The other end of Longfords is Gatcombe Lake,
So it must be down the other way. It’s marsh now. It’s been drained.
It’s funny now you mention it. Some people have said it’s haunted down there.
It’s the only place in the entire mill that has a dark feeling about it.’
I met another man down by the water’s edge:
‘My niece is a Buddhist and when she comes to stay she always says
There is an ambience down there. She says she feels the presence of departed souls.
There wasn’t a family in the country that wasn’t touched by that war.
That’s why we’re standing here talking today.’
I wandered on, taking pictures of where I imagined they carefully placed
His hat, her bonnet and umbrella,
Gazing at the flowing waters, weirs and sluice gate,
Pondering on the spring-source of the waters that took their lives,
But my reverie was disturbed by a ‘phone call
(Our grocery bill for our holiday cottage, and whether we should have left the hot water on,
A pleasantly small grocery bill, and would I check about the water),
Until I reconnected with the past by recreating their route down from Minchinhampton
(In a reverse manner);
I was on the path the two lovers would have taken on that fateful night,
But my mind was full of questions:
Did they walk down the lane hand in hand for the whole time?
Or arm in arm, just like a courting couple?
Was the umbrella ever opened to keep off any rain?
Was a brow ever mopped on a humid night?
Did they circumspectly avoid any puddles or footfalls?
Were their minds made up from the start of their descent to the mill?
Did the plan develop as they walked down the lane?
Were minds made up before they reached the pond?
How mutual was the decision?
Were there any second thoughts or doubts?
Was there ever a backwards, wistful, glance at candled or gas mantled windows?
Was their path illuminated by a bright moon sky?
Was it reflected in the waters?
Why did they leave the cap, the bonnet and the umbrella?
Did either fight for life as the waters invaded their lungs?
Or was there a meek acquiescent submission?
Did their short lives pass before them in the waters, resignedly,
Or was there an electric regret?
Were they entering the Kingdom of Heaven through final baptism?
I passed a thick trunked sessile oak, a sapling when they passed this way,
Steadily climbing to West End, Minchinhampton,
Where Archibald closed a final front door on August 27th, 1916,
Then along the Tetbury Road, to the Baptist Church,
Where the gravestones were laid out in serene semi-circles –
I cut my hands on thorns trying to read each stone’s lettering,
Until I at last ended my melancholy search:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
OUR DEARLY LOVED AND ONLY CHILD
ARCHIBALD C. KNEE
WHO DIED AUGUST 27th 1916
AGED 24 YEARS
NO ONE KNOWS THE SILENT HEARTACHE
ONLY THOSE CAN TELL
WHO HAVE LOST THEIR BEST AND DEAREST
WITHOUT A LAST FAREWELL
Then underneath:
ALSO OF MY DEAR HUSBAND CHARLES H. KNEE
WHO DIED SEPT 16th 1922
There was, in front of the headstone,
A small wickerwork basket that had sunken into the grass,
The remains of a Christmas floral dressing perhaps,
Left by a well-wisher paying their respects.

I retraced my steps back towards town, past Chapel Lane,
(Where the hearse would have travelled on its sombre path
To Archibald’s final resting place),
To photograph the names on the war memorial,
Where the alphabet of the fallen jumps from
George W Jones to Christopher Lawrence;
I read and reflected:
If Archibald had returned to Chisledon,
And had been killed on his first night in France,
Then his name would be up there:
TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THIS PLACE WHO FOUGHT AND FELL
IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918
THESE DIED IN WAR SO THAT WE IN PEACE MIGHT LIVE
THEY GAVE THEIR BEST SO WE OUR BEST SHOULD GIVE

I left Minchinhampton in pensive mood
(Was not Archibald (and Dorothy) a victim of war, too?),
To walk across the common and down the hill to Amberley,
In search of Dorothy’s grave at Holy Trinity
(There is a Victorian post-box in the wall there,
Did Dorothy send Archie her letters there?),
The Victorian graveyard is of surprising and staggering size,
And I traipsed through the wet shadowed grass,
Carefully examining each epitaph,
But unlike Pip, my expectations were low,
How on earth could I hope to find a needle in a haystack of the dead?
This was more like a necropolis,
Rather than just a graveyard full of weather beaten headstones,
And I was just on the point of giving up,
When two gravestones from 1915 caught my eye,
And a sense of intuition that the third in line,
With such a prominent RIP engraved on a cross might be the one,
Proved to be correct.
It was with a shout of triumph, when I read the name:
Dorothy Beard.
The grave was in a damp, sequestered, wood strewn corner,
The cross has tilted forward, the canting
Making it difficult to read the lettering at the base of the plinth;
I had to get down on all fours,
Using my bare hands to remove the patina of time:
THE BELOVED DAUGHTER OF NATHANIEL AND ELIZABETH BEARD
BORN JAN 12th 1898 DIED AUGUST 28th 1916
LORD ALL PITYING JESU BLEST
GRANT HER THY ETERNAL REST
(There is a disparity in the dates of their death,
But August 28th is, in fact, correct:
Dorothy’s watch stopped at 3.50 a.m. –
But they went missing, of course, on the night of the 27th.)
There was a small wooden basket similar to the one at Archibald’s grave,
Down in the ground with the sere leaves, chippings, twigs and sticks,
There was some broken glass too that I descried when on hands and knees,
Perhaps the remains of a jam jar or vase, blown over in a storm;
I stood back and studied the gravestones to the immediate left of Dorothy’s,
The first name was that of LONGFORD WILLIAM TAYLOR, BORN 1864
He died the year before Dorothy, in 1915,
But SARAH THE WIFE OF THE ABOVE,
Who was also born in 1864, lived as a widow for 46 years –
Until her death in 1961 –
What memories she would have carried of Dorothy into the nuclear age,
That poor young girl who wandered into Iron Gates Pond with her fiancée,
All those years ago…
Next to that grave stood a tall headstone
(With a small wooden remembrance cross attached, with wire, to its centre),
Listing three family deaths in a sorrowful year of 1915,
Including a son killed in action in France, aged nineteen years:
KILLED IN A FAR OFF LAND
NO LOVED ONE BY TO TAKE HIS HAND
A LOVING COMRADE CLOSED HIS EYES
FAR FROM HIS NATIVE LAND HE LIES

I took a final picture of Dorothy’s grave
(Wondering if Dorothy and Archibald talked of that recent gravestone,
And how that might have affected their mood),
Before walking back home over Rodborough Common,
With as view to soft lit Severn:
‘Severn’s most fair today!
See what a tide of blue
She pours, and flecked away
With gold, and what a crew
Of seagulls snowy white
Float around her to delight..’
And also Gurney’s lines on the Somme in my mind:
‘Suddenly into the still air burst thudding
And thudding and cold fear possessed me all…
But still a hope I kept that were we there going over,
I, in the line, I should not fail, but take recover
From others’ courage, and not as coward be known…’
Archibald, you must have met Dorothy some times when courting,
Over there at Tom Long’s Post, wandering towards the sunset,
Gazing in rapture at the line of the river,
With Sugar Loaf etched behind against the western skies,
And you, Dorothy, must have walked through Brimscombe so many times,
Arm in arm with Archibald,
Where Gurney bicycled and walked:
‘One lucky hour in the middle of my tiredness,
I came under the pines of the sheer steep
And saw the stars like steady candles gleam
Above and through; Brimscombe, wrapped (past life) in sleep!…
That ringed-in hour of pines, stars, and dark eminence.
(The thing we looked for in our fear of France).’

The fear of France…
And all roads seemed as though they might well lead to France…
Unless you walked out one night,
Arm in arm,
Along the New Road that led to the Iron Gates Pond.