Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 2 looking for Private H F Jordan

This was the message that Private H F Jordan left in the autograph book of the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham.*

He was recovering from wounds in December 1916 and as a mark of his gratitude he wrote a short thank you to the nurse who had cared for him.

He was one of 29 men recovering from wounds sustained in Gallipoli and on the Somme who left a mix of messages from poems, drawings, paintings and short comments.

In the fullness of time it should be possible to find out something about each of these 29 and the nurses who are also mentioned in the book.

So far a search for Private H F Jordan has revealed that he received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal and that he died in March 1920.

I know he served in the Essex Regiment and that there is an entry for him in the UK Army Register of Soldier’s Effects and that is all.

But there will be more.

Already I know  a little more about the hospital and in time with the help of Cheltenham Local Studies Centre we should have a series of photographs which will give a greater context to the time he spent in Cheltenham.

Picture; the entry of Private H F Jordan, December 1916 from Blighty, the autograph book of St. John's Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham from the collection of David Harrop

*Blighty, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Blighty