Growing up in Lausanne Road in the 1950s was to be untouched by the Great War.
Of course the evidence of the Second World War was still all around us.
Many of the bomb sites had yet to be redeveloped and there were those signs announcing EWS and Shelters.*
Added to which there were plenty of gable ends which had been cemented over and told of the house next door which had been blown away.
But the Great War was different. It was rarely a topic of conversation which given the more recent conflict was understandable.
And yet those who had participated in it either as combatants or on the Home Front would still be in their late 50s or early 60s, would yet to have retired and some were not yet grandparents.
But I can think of only one moment when it impinged on me and that was at school at Edmund Waller.
In the upstairs hall on a ledge in a glass case was the Roll of Honour, opened at a particular page with those who had survived recorded in black ink and those who had died in red.
I have often wondered if the pages were turned regularly and more recently whether it still exists in the school and is on display.
Today that conflict is remembered in a way that was not the case when I was growing up.
Rightly so we have come again to recognise the sacrifice of that generation but I think all too often we see them as either young men staring back at us in their ill fitting uniforms or as frail individuals with faltering voices in wheel chairs and forget that when that war was over they settled down to productive lives, raising families with decades ahead of them.
And I was reminded of this when I met with Nicola whose great uncle had fought in the war and died aged just 23 on the Western Front in 1917.
He had been one of those young me who had enlisted in the first few months of the outbreak of war and was in the 2nd City Battalion of the Manchester’s which formed the second Manchester Pals Battalion.
Early in 1915 young Joseph Thomas sent a picture postcard to his brother announcing he was coming home on leave.
The card like many of the time carried an image of a group of young soldiers and after posting the story Nicola got in touch and identified her great uncle.
In the family collection was this replica of the Cenotaph made by Kingsway Art China of London.*
Once these must have been manufactured in their thousands but I doubt that many still exist and those that do will be in collections whose owners have little knowledge of its personal history.
This one however retains that link with the Thomas family and that young man.
And by extension I wonder how many other very personal memorabilia exist in Peckham and which contain a story.
Yesterday I reflected on the story of young George Carly who had lived in our house.
He was born in 1894 and died on the Western Front at the Battle of the Somme on September 18 1916 and I rather hope that I will uncover something of his.
Pictures; replica of the Cenotaph, circa 1920s courtesy of Nicola O'Neil and Joseph Thomas circa 1914-15 from a picture postcard, 1915 from the collection of David Harrop
 |
| Replica Cenotaph circa 1920 |
Many of the bomb sites had yet to be redeveloped and there were those signs announcing EWS and Shelters.*
Added to which there were plenty of gable ends which had been cemented over and told of the house next door which had been blown away.
But the Great War was different. It was rarely a topic of conversation which given the more recent conflict was understandable.
And yet those who had participated in it either as combatants or on the Home Front would still be in their late 50s or early 60s, would yet to have retired and some were not yet grandparents.
But I can think of only one moment when it impinged on me and that was at school at Edmund Waller.
In the upstairs hall on a ledge in a glass case was the Roll of Honour, opened at a particular page with those who had survived recorded in black ink and those who had died in red.
I have often wondered if the pages were turned regularly and more recently whether it still exists in the school and is on display.
 |
| Joseph Thomas circa 1914-15 |
Rightly so we have come again to recognise the sacrifice of that generation but I think all too often we see them as either young men staring back at us in their ill fitting uniforms or as frail individuals with faltering voices in wheel chairs and forget that when that war was over they settled down to productive lives, raising families with decades ahead of them.
And I was reminded of this when I met with Nicola whose great uncle had fought in the war and died aged just 23 on the Western Front in 1917.
He had been one of those young me who had enlisted in the first few months of the outbreak of war and was in the 2nd City Battalion of the Manchester’s which formed the second Manchester Pals Battalion.
Early in 1915 young Joseph Thomas sent a picture postcard to his brother announcing he was coming home on leave.
The card like many of the time carried an image of a group of young soldiers and after posting the story Nicola got in touch and identified her great uncle.
In the family collection was this replica of the Cenotaph made by Kingsway Art China of London.*
 |
| Replica Cenotaph circa 1920 |
This one however retains that link with the Thomas family and that young man.
And by extension I wonder how many other very personal memorabilia exist in Peckham and which contain a story.
Yesterday I reflected on the story of young George Carly who had lived in our house.
He was born in 1894 and died on the Western Front at the Battle of the Somme on September 18 1916 and I rather hope that I will uncover something of his.
Pictures; replica of the Cenotaph, circa 1920s courtesy of Nicola O'Neil and Joseph Thomas circa 1914-15 from a picture postcard, 1915 from the collection of David Harrop
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