In Mousehole ….. remembering those who never came home

 When the sums were finally done the cost of the Great War was horrendous.

In Mousehole, 2025

They included 887,858 military deaths, 16,829 civilian deaths, a huge number of wounded from the battlefields, which amounted to between 1.9% and 2.22% of the total population.

Figures which will have had their own powerful and personal impact on families and communities.

No where more so than in the tiny villages and hamlets across the country.  Statisticians might argue that the loss was no greater than in the great cities and towns, but in the small communities of rural Britain it might have felt so.

And I was struck by that thought last week as we explored the fishing villages along the eastern coast of Cornwall.

From Mousehole where we stayed through Newlyn and Penzance and inland through small villages and hamlets all of which each had their own monument to those who fought and those who never came back.

Of course, statistics often gloss over the detail, so while the loss was great, it was not so everywhere.  

Six members of our family went to war, including my great grandfather who returned to the colours, my grandfather, his two brothers and my uncles George and Fergus, and all returned.  As well as my two German great uncles which underlines that simple observation that for my family the conflict was a civil war as well as a clash of nations.

Location; Mousehole, Cornwall

Picture; Remembering those who left Mousehole for two world wars, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson