This process is not only a new concept for Ibstock Concrete, but is a revolutionary approach for the entire industry, as it effectively reduces the associated risks of high levels of potential exposure to vibration, by providing individuals with real time information on the level of vibration the manufacturing equipment is currently operating at. Even on the highest setting, a vibration survey has evidenced the potential exposure limit as low as 2.
Following the success of this new process and its reflection of best practice, a plan is in place to phase in the technology across all Supreme Concrete and Anderton Concrete manufacturing sites where vibrating tables operate.
As part of this dedicated programme of investment, Ibstock Concrete has also reviewed its slotted post casting process at its Bedford facility. U81 was to suffer the same fate just three days later on the 1st May when she was torpedoed west of Ireland by HM Submarine E Ellistown's Amos Barnes was actually born in Nailstone but was brought up while the family lives at Whitehill Road in Ellistown was serving with the 18th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers near Ancre during the German Withdrawal to the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line when he was killed in action on the 15th April John Callier was also brought up in Ellistown, at Midland Road, but was also born elsewhere, in Ashby.
Before enlisting on the 1st November he was a shoe maker. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment fighting in Iraq and it was on the 23rd April that was John was shot by a sniper, one of the 2, casualties sustained in the three day successful offensive to take Samarra station seventy miles north of Baghdad.
His unit were south of Wancourt when he was injured and would die from his wounds on the 13th April Nailstones 'other' casualty this month was sustained during the Second Battle of the Scarpe on the 24th April The brutality of the fighting on Western Front is the focus of many attention during WW1. People are also aware of the Galipoli campaign and occasionally Mesopotamia where John Callier fought.
We don't know the exact date but it's believed around this time in Ibstock's John Eggington had a miraculous escape. John's little brother Lewis, although too young to serve himself, recorded his families varied involvement in the Great War in great detail from Red Cross Sisters and Munitionettes through the Intelligence Corps interrogation of German officers and it's with thanks to Lewis's granddaughter that we can share John's tale.
Many long standing Ibstock residents will remember John as the manager of the Co-op store on Chapel Street. John wanted to support his country but the families strict Methodist upbringing lead many into support roles and John was placed in charge of a mess canteen for the soldiers close to the front lines, no doubt calling on his experience of management of provisions prior to the war.
John was sent to carry mail to the front lines in a role that was far more riskier than his previous one, or so people thought until a week later when the canteen he had worked at sustained a direct hit causing a great number of casualties. Devine providence perhaps? John went on to serve his country indirectly during the following conflict when he served on the food committee ensuring scarce rations were shepherded carefully and fairly. Sadly he would lose his son in that confict when the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle was sank in the Mediterranean.
MAY During Mid-March the Germans began falling back to the Hindenburg Line, a heavily fortified construction behind their existing lines known as Operation Alberich. They destroyed everything on the ground that they left flattening villages, poisoning wells, cutting down trees, blowing craters on roads and crossroads, booby-trapping ruins and dugouts. The withdrawal was to an immensely powerful and shorter line, positioned to take every tactical advantage of ground - obviously someone had been a student of Wellington campaign against Napoleonic forces a hundred years earlier.
The construction of this line had been spotted by British and French aviators in late It was during the pursuit of the German forces that Arthur was killed in action. William Harper lived at Whitehill Road and worked at Ellistown Colliery at the far end of the village. William died from wounds on the 17th May while serving with the 5th Battalion Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry probably as a result of the Battle of Arras which took place between the 9th April and 16th May Ernest Flamson of the 1st Bn Leicestershire was born in Heather but later moved to 47 Ibstock Road in Ellistown where he worked at the nearby South Leicester colliery in Ellistown.
Operational Order number received from Brigade re relief on the night of the 26th May. Casualties, other ranks A Company 1 killed and 1 wounded. The war memorial on Central Avenue in Ibstock bears two lads under the name of Barrs, Jack was the elder of the two and was killed in September Both Jack and his brother George were employed at the Ellistown colliery alongside their father.
The Barrs family lived on Richmond Road which at the time was part of the Ellistown parish. George had joined up on the 25th September soon after war was declared and had been serving in France for 2 years and 5 months before he died of wounds on the 25th May sustained at Spanbroekmolen on the Messines Ridge. This was part of the same wider German withdraw to the Hindenburg Line mentioned above for Arthur Quilter.
George's parents had received a telegram at the beginning of May to say that George had been wounded in the thigh by a piece of shrapnel. It was around this time in that Ibstock's Alty Adcock started his time in uniform. No story of Ibstock would be complete without at least one Adcock.
In the summer of Alty married Elsie Webb of Whitwick and they had one son, Robert, who was born towards the end of This differs from the unit his family believed he had served with - the Leicestershire Regiment - but there were a number of local men who followed the same path of enlisting with the Tigers before being transferred to the Labour Corps. Alty was 30 at the time and a physically strong man used to shifting beer barrels would have come in useful with the Labour Corps.
Before the war Alty played the piano at the Palace to accompany silent movies and would play in both the Waggon and the Ram Inn, one positive side effect was he rarely had to pay for his drinks when out socialising. During his time in uniform, his skill with the piano came in handy when he was asked to entertain in the officers mess. After the war Alty set up a music and second hand furniture shop at number 57 High Street in Ibstock. His success in Pigeon racing was evident by the amount silverware on show on the Sideboard at home with little room for anything else.
Alty died in the winter of at the grand age of aged June This month sees five local men remembered following their deaths a hundred years ago during the First World War.
Although Arthur Gamble was born in Rothwell in Northamptonshire we remember him for the time he lived at Whitehill Road in Ellistown. This fact came to life when his enlistment papers were found for the 44th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry when he enlisted in Winnipeg on the 29th February , he listed his occupation as Farmer.
Arthur had immigrated back in , sailing from Liverpool to New Brunswick in Canada. On the 3rd June Arthur was killed in action. After losing Vimy Ridge the Germans threw all their reserve forces into an effort to recapture Vimy, their primary line of advance was along the Souchez river valley.
The combined Canadian and British forces in this area resisted the German attacks - which included the use of poison gas - intense fighting went on for several days. In the end the Germans were again forced to retreat and the Canadians were able to continue to advance from Vimy as far as the city of Avion. Harry Arthur Fowkes was born in Ibstock in and was a Labourer at the brickyard where his father Joseph was Foreman. On the 27th July the 19 year old Harry enlisted at Loughborough and it is understood that he was part of a large draft sent to France in late Isaac Lewis was another Ibstock coal miner taken into the ranks of the Royal Engineers to dig tunnels under No Mans Land in order to lay significant mines underneath the enemies trench network - a tactic that proved so effective the previous year at Lochnagar during the Somme offensive.
Isaac worked his way up the mining structure starting at the colliery as Pony Driver progressing to Coal Loader and eventually Hewer working the coal face.
In he married Emily Blakesley from Leicester. Arthur Brooks was born in Heather in , the family lived on Swepstone Road in Heather near the Flamson and Boobyer families where Arthur worked as an apprentice butcher in Heather. Arthur was one of a handful of men from the area to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in attacking a hostile bombing party single handed, killing two and dispersing the remainder. The incident happened during the Arras offensive.
The wind was satisfactory, and the buildings were at least yards away from our nearest trenches, so there seemed no need of any special precautions. Instead, they fell in our trenches, several hundred of them; in a few seconds, and before any warning could be shouted, the trenches were full of phosgene, the deadliest of all gasses.
Officers and men worked hard to rouse those resting, and, in particular, 2nd Lieut. Banwell taking no heed for his own safety went everywhere, rousing, rescuing and helping the badly gassed.
With the exception of Capt. Twenty-four died from the poison. June proved a major turning point for Sydney Richards of the 2nd Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Although his service papers didn't survive the WW2 blitz but we do know that he first served overseas in France landing on the 11th January , although family rumour tells that he also served in Mesopotamia which would put him in the 2nd Battalion of the Fusiliers.
Sidney was awarded the Silver War Badge on his discharge on the 26th June Sidney was evacuated aboard the HMT Nevasa, a troopship that was fitted as a bed hospital ship. Sidney was eventually evacuated home and died in Ibstock within weeks of the armistice in December from the debilitating effects of the Shell Shock and is buried in St Denys Churchyard. Each month I include an article about the local lads who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
Every story is different but deserves telling so that their sacrifice does not get forgotten. The first of this months stories has a personal twist for me as it features my Great Uncle and was the reason for getting involved in the North West Leicestershire Heritage Forum project to document each of the WW1 casualties from the District into five books, my contribution was the Lest We Forget book covering in addition to Ibstock, the villages of Bagworth, Ellistown and Battram, Heather, Nailstone, Newton Burgoland, Normanton-le-Heath, Odstone, snarestone and Swepstone.
My Great Grandfather moved the family to Chapel Street when he found work at the Ibstock pit and no doubt George would have grown up with tales his fathers time in uniform when he served with the Leicestershire Regiment as a lad.
George joined his father and older brother Arthur - my grandfather - as cobblers in their shop on the corner of Pennistone Street and Leicester Road. In March George traveled to Leicester with three of his friends from Ibstock to enlist with the North Staffordshire Regiment, Bertram Redshaw featured in these pages in March and sadly you'll hear about the other two - Walter Fowkes in September and Arthur Allen in March next year, 12 months after the first of the four friends was killed.
George was attached to a Lewis gun section, a typical team was made of five men. The Number 1 who was in charge and carried the machine gun — nicknamed the Belgian Rattlesnake - named after the guns original inventor, Colonel Lewis of the US Army who moved to Belgium.
The Number 2 carried the spare parts that accompanied the gun. The other three men in the crew carried the ammunition that the machine gun needed, each of these three men was expected to carry two hundred rounds of ammunition in panniers. Teams learnt to move frequently as the enemy would quickly establish where a Lewis machine gun was placed and artillery would home in on it. By moving frequently the risk of detection was considerably reduced. During basic training if an infantry soldier who scored over a certain number of points in marksmanship tests were offered the opportunity to become either a sniper or to join a Lewis machine gun team.
The badge of crossed rifles, to indicate a marksman, also brought with it an extra 6d a day, they were also not expected to do the traditional work of infantrymen, this was because of their importance to the defense of trench lines and the time taken by the teams to keep their gun and equipment in top condition.
William enlisted in Coalville with the 12th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and formed part of the re-enforcements of the Lowther Lambs, as the Regiment was called, around September It was the opening attack of the main part of the Third Battle of Ypres that took place in the Ypres Salient area of the Western Front.
Heavy rainfall began in the afternoon of 31st, causing many problems for the British who were advancing into the area devastated by artillery fire and which was partly flooded. Both of these stories feature in the aforementioned Lest We Forget book, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes.
He entered his occupation as Printer living at 80 Melbourne Road. He departed Southampton on the 19th June landing at Alexandria on the 6th July Chas and Jessie retired to Dorset and Chas passed away in December After Chas's death Jessie moved to Mansfield to be close to her son where she passed away in Fred Sleigh kept the garage near the school on Whitehill Road in Ellistown and featured in the November edition.
John Haywood Bacon was another Ellistown born volunteer, before the war he worked alongside his brother and father at the Ellistown colliery as Fitters. The work of the Royal Engineers could involve anything from canal banks and barge maintenance, to bridges and dock stonework. The Inland Waterways section was formed back in operating barges through the extensive canal network of Belgium and Northern France as well as the large river deltas of Mesopotania, modern day Iraq.
After the war John returned to Ellistown and his job at the Colliery. He would eventually work his way up to Engine wright at the colliery whose job it was to look after the winding engine which took the cages of men up and down the shaft to the required seam and winch the mined coal back to the surface.
John went on to marry Eunice Woolerton in , they lived at 8 Victoria Road close to the colliery until his death in August sees us remember another four young lads from the area that paid the ultimate sacrifice years ago during the Great War. Walter would eventually join him below ground, working on the face at Nailstone colliery.
Walter enlisted at Coalville on the 23rd September , just weeks after war was declared, and seemed to be leading a charmed life. In early a bullet hit his belt buckle and he escaped injury, in July of the same year he was hit again, this time in a small tin box in his pocket. Eventually Walter returned to front line duties and his Battalion were involved in the fighting at Hohenzollern Redoubt plus the Somme offensive. It was while they were moving into position at St Elie on the 15th August that an enemy shell landed among the line and killed a number of men including Walter, who died.
A shell, intended for one of our batteries West of Vermelles, fell on the Company as they were passing the Mansion House Dump. They were marching in fours and had practically a whole platoon wiped out, for eleven were killed and fourteen wounded. Following his father and older brothers, Alfred worked at the South Leicester colliery. Judging from his service number, Alfred seems to have volunteered in the winter of The following day Ibstock's Arthur Newman was killed. He was a dispatch rider with 4 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps who, along with 6 squadron, shared Abeele aerodrome.
Arthur was the son of one of Ibstock's butchers, William Newman, and older brother of Author Bernard. John enlisted at Leicester on the 22nd November , soon after John Callier of Ellistown who was also placed in the 2nd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment featured in the April article. John embarked from Devonport on the 7th June , arriving at Basra in Mesopotamia, now modern day Iraq. John was involved in the same action on the 22nd April at Samarra Station that saw Callier shot by a snipper and John Sharpe receives a gunshot wound to his right knee and is admitted to Hospital for treatment.
By the 28th August John is based at the Advanced Base Depot at Kut, miles south of Baghdad, and is recorded as accidentally drowned. He went into the water about 5. Pte Jozzard tried to save him and both went under. I saw him come up again and then Sharpe appeared to let go of Jozaard and sank. Jozzard then asked for a towel but it was too late to be of any use. August saw four local men mobilised, Thomas Eggington of Ibstock was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment and landed in France at Boulogne on the 19th August.
After the war Billy would return to the families Butchers shop on the High Street, eventually taking over the running of the business from his father, another Billy.
Before the war Augustus had kept the Crown Inn at Heather. On the 23rd August John was at Southampton docks, also bound for Egypt. It's thought that Jospeh was invalided home during training with the 12th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers and he died at home on the 6th September and is buried in Ibstock sadly he was entered on the memorial on Central Avenue as T Allen.
William was born in Measham but raised in Ibstock where he worked at the Worthington's Grocers working his way up from Grocers Assistant up to Area Manager.
He married Eleanor Richardson and they lived above Eleanor's fathers shop at High Street, known in the modern day as Megan's being William's granddaughter. William Tyers was nearly thirty when he joined the Army, most likely as a conscript around February during the Derby scheme which was brought in to recruit men otherwise older than the initial draft's requirements.
He landed in France sometime in summer of when he was transferred to the 25th Tyneside Battalion In the third week of August the Northumberland Fusiliers were at the Guillemot Farm, near Hargicourt where they repulsed all counter-attacks and it was here during heavy shelling that William was killed in action.
He had lost his father at an early age and his widowed mother relied on the wages of her older sons who were all miners with the exception of Albert who worked alongside William. He first entered France on 25th February and most likely wounded by shell fire during the Battle of the Menin Road — also known as the Third Battle of Ypres - and died on the 20th September Wilfred Mason was born in Thornton but raised at 22 Ellistown Terrace close to the colliery and before the war was a Bread Deliverer.
In a stark change of tactic the British attacks were led by lines of skirmishers, followed by small infantry columns organised in depth with a vastly increased amount of artillery support, the infantry advancing behind five layers of creeping bombardment. Preparations were then made swiftly to defeat the expected German counter-attacks. The attack inflicted a severe blow on the German Fourth Army, capturing a significant portion of Flandern I, which threatened the German hold on Broodseinde ridge.
The better weather continued to benefit the British attackers by drying the ground, raising mist which obscured British infantry attacks made around dawn, then clearing to reveal German Eingreif formations to air and ground observation, well in advance of their arrival on the battlefield.
On the same day Charles Seekins of 17th Coy. Walter Fowkes is the final Ibstock casualty to be remember this month. Walter lived at 22 Leicester Road in Ibstock and before enlisting Walter worked as a Stockhand in the second most popular trade in the area, the Boot and Shoe industry.
Judging from his service number Walter probably signed up on the 7th March alongside three of his friends, Bertram Redshaw who died in March , George Cooper who was killed in July and Arthur Allen who you'll hear about in March next year.
At the beginning of August the 46th Division was moved up to the Line to trenches opposite Hulloch, near Loos. There may have been no major engagements, but the attrition of trench warfare continued to take its toll as Walter is killed in action on 30th September in what appears to be an isolated incident.
The sad passing recently of one of the Historical Societies long standing members reminded me of his contribution to the follow up book, Left to Grow Old. Although Lest We Forget rightly remembers those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country, Nine out of every Ten people - and the vast majority of women - involved in the war effort were able to return to their families and Left to Grow Old details a of those people from this area.
Geoff Mee's two uncles are featured as Arthur served with C Coy of the 4th Battalion Manchester Regiment while Doug served with the Royal Horse Artillery, after the war both would return to Ibstock and work with their mother at Mee's Bakery at the foot of Chapel Street where many local long standing residents would have bought celebratory cakes.
Those same residents may well have visited George Browns butchers on Melbourne Road, close to the junction with Valley Road. Speaking of butchers, the Smith brothers in Ibstocks surviving butchers on the High Street also made their contribution to the book recalling their grandfather George Brown who served in the 8th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and their two great uncles, Charlie Browne Coldstream Guards and Levi Adcock Royal Army Medical Corps all feature in the book.
The Smiths neighbour on the High Street is the electrical retail business owned by Tom Underwood who provided a lot of invaluable detail of his fathers recollections, also called Tom, featured here in these pages back in December last year and gave an invaluable insight into the life and deprivations endured by the average Private in the trenches.
Still on the butcher theme, last month we mentioned mentioned Billy Newman who succeeded his father in running the family butchers after the war. He had lost one brother, Arthur, also mentioned last month. Oldest brother Fred served with 41st Coy Army Ordnance Corps and youngest brother, Bernard, served with the Army Service Corps putting his linguistic skills to good use. William Richardson served in the Kings Royal Rifles and would take over from his father-in-law in running the Rising Sun at Shackerstone for a while.
Joseph was actually born in Sharnford moving to Ibstock between and and after leaving school was another local miner employed as a Hewer on the face. Joseph volunteered on the 20th September at the recruiting hall on Ashby Road in Coalville and was posted to the 10th Battalion for training, moving to the 6th Battalion when it was sent to France on 16th May Early in July they moved by train to Mericourt and from there marched to Fricourt on the 11th preparing for the attack on Bazentin.
Joseph is wounded in the hand around the time of the attack and spends several months recovering in the UK, returning to France sometime after October where he then joins the 7th Battalion who are in the Hohenzollern sector. They spend time out of the line before being moved to the Ypres Salient where the action at Polygon Wood takes place on 1st October.
Samuel was also born elsewhere, in Quorn where he grew up but is believed to have moved to Ibstock following his older brothers John, Joseph and George when they all found work at the village colliery - probably with Joseph who lodged with the Hicklin family at High Street or with John and George lodged with the Shepherd family at Melbourne Road.
By the 20th December he is with the the 1st Battalion South Staffs. The Battle of Broodseinde saw new tactics being employed limiting the objectives to those that could be held against German counterattacks. The British devastated the German defence, which prompted a crisis among the German commanders and caused a severe loss of morale in the German Fourth Army.
Preparations were made by the Germans for local withdrawals and planning began for a greater withdrawal which would entail the loss to the Germans of the Belgian coast, one of the strategic aims of the British offensive. Hollis Hawtin Rose was born further afield, in Swerford Oxfordshire. Although we know who his mother was, Jane Rose, there is no record shows who his father was, but as was the tradition in the day, Hollis's unusual middle name may provide some clues.
The and census have Hollis living with his mother and uncle, John Rose, the latter census records Hollis as a Farm Labourer. As with Joseph and Samuel, Hollis jnr enlisted at Coalville in the Leicestershire Regiment, judging from his original service number, probably around July of The final Ibstock lad was John Wright and he was actually Ibstock born and bred, the family lived at 17 Hinckley Road.
John worked on the surface at Ibstock Colliery prior to the war and was a member of the Wesleyan Chapel choir on Melbourne Road. The Leicesters were back at Ypres at the time that John was killed in action on the 6th October which followed soon after the Battle of Broodseinde. October proved a major turning point for another local soldier during WW1, Tommy Eggington, and his story along with other men and women who served their country but were able to return to their family can be found in the Ibstock Historical Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old.
The corresponding article for January introduced Thomas Eggington, a member of the large Eggington family from Melbourne Road who were long time supporters of the Methodist Church nearby. Tommy enlisted back in but as mentioned above was placed on reserve until 24th May when he is called, landing in France at Boulogne on the 19th August and was immediately posted to the 1st Battalion South Staffordshire. County regiments often served with their neighbouring Regiments which would explain the transfer from the Leicesters if the neighbouring unit were under strength.
Tommy had been in France less than seven weeks when he was wounded in the neck on the 3rd October which required a return to England. He rejoins his unit on the 12th December but in January a number of South Staffs Battalions were disbanded and Tommy found himself transferred to Italy where, on the 17th August , he gets wounded again, this time in the knee although this is treated in the field.
Eventually he is discharged from the army on the 10th February , his occupation guaranteeing him a priority discharge and he returns to his job at Ibstock colliery but after its closure in had to move to nearby Nailstone where he worked as a Labourer above ground.
Tommy died on the 5th April in the Leicester General Hospital aged November marked the end of another of the infamous battles of World War 1. The Third Battle of Ypres has largely been remembered for the little village that was the center of the action, Passchendale, and two of this months three casualties featured in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book were a result of wounds sustained in the final days of the battle.
The infantry attack had begun at the end of July. Constant shelling had churned the clay soil and smashed the drainage systems. The heaviest rain for 30 years had turned the soil into a quagmire, producing thick mud that clogged up rifles and immobilised tanks. It eventually became so deep that men and horses drowned in it. After an initial apprenticeship with them Alfred progressed to Printing Compositor with the Coalville Times. In he married Emma Chiswell and lived at Crescent Road in Hugglescote where they had two daughters.
During the last days of the battle Alfred was seriously wounded in right arm and chest. Initial hopes that he would recover sufficiently to travel to England were forwarded to his family but he passed away on the 11th November and it was the following week that the Coalville Times had to annocunce the death of one of their own. James was born in Congerstone but moved to Swepstone the following year in time to be recorded on the census Evans Farm.
James enlisted at Coalville, like many of the local lads originally in the Leicestershire Regiment. The first three such battles Menin Road Ridge, Polygon Ridge and Broodseinde had each achieved their objectives, biting chunks out of the German line and then defending those gains against any counterattacks. Each of the attacks had been supported by a well directed artillery bombardment that had isolated the part of the German front line as well as by a creeping barrage that had protected the advancing soldiers.
They had also taken place during a patch of dry weather. The attack at Poelcappelle failed to achieve its objectives, although a number of units did manage to advance a short distance, they were forced to pull back later in the day. John was born in Snarestone and raised in Shackerstone where his father worked as a Signalman. John enlisted in Melton probably during the Derby scheme and killed in action on the 30th during the Battle of Cambrai.
The battle was significant for being the first successful massed use of tanks, they had been brought into service the previous year but unlike previous deployments, it was the success of the attack and the resulting Allied press attention that were unprecedented.
It was their effectiveness against the initial barbed wire defences, which had previously been considered a safe bet by the Central Powers to be impregnable. The initial Allied successes demonstrated that even the most resolute of trench defence could be overcome by this new method of combining the use of infantry, artillery barrarges and tanks with aircraft observation and direction. Ultimately the German shock as a result of the attack would lead to a change in tactics of counter attack and morale but it couldn't deny that they'd had to divert resources to anti-tank weapons and defence, resources that they couldn't afford to tie up until the Russians exited the war on the German Eastern front later.
November proved pivotal for a number of local servicemen featured in the Ibstock Historical Societies follow up publication 'Left to Grow Old'. Wilf had only enlisted on the 22nd May but suffered badly from a gas attack and ended up in North Evington Hospital now the Leicester General Hospital before being discharged.
In the winter of Wilf married Hilda Hibbert and they had three children. As if to demonstrate that life back at Ibstock colliery was as dangerous, if not more, than life at the Western Front Wilf was only 29 when he was killed at the colliery in Ibstock on the 28th July He was employed as a boiler fireman when he was caught in a fan engine during a Saturday night shift. Walter lived at Jubilee Cottages in Newton, close to the Belper Arms, he left school aged 16 and initially worked for a blacksmith at Snarestone before moving to the Brickyard in Heather while learning shorthand and typing at evening classes in Ibstock run by Frederick Newman, featured in Septembers article.
In , aged 21, Walter went to work at Bardon Hill Quarries in the offices where he would remain until he retired in aged He enlisted in the army on the 22nd February initially in the Durham Light Infantry after his basic training at Newcastle upon Tyne.
His shorthand and typing skills were quickly spotted and he was quickly promoted to Lance Corporal which meant a move behind lines to do secretarial work and therefore he spent little time in the trenches.
The Bowlers were members of the Methodist chapel at Newton Burgoland, another family that attended the church was the Harrisons and it was their daughter Elsie that Walter married on the 10th November at St Peters church in Swepstone. In January Walter was offered the chance of demobilisation in place of a sergeant who was in hospital at the time and unable to travel. Walter sailed from Boulogne and then travelled by train to a camp at Harrowby near Grantham for 2 days.
He then had to catch two further onward trains first to Leicester and then to Coalville, from where he walked to Newton. After being demobbed, Walter returned to Bardon Hill but following his time in France and Germany, Walter never travelled abroad again. He never learnt to drive and always cycled to and from work at Bardon Hill, when the weather was particularly bad he used to lodge with a family in Bardon.
Elsie and Walter had two children while they lived at Jubilee Cottages. By the time of the birth of their third child the family were living at 38 The Crescent in Bardon.
After Elsie's death Walter returned to Newton Burgoland to live with his mother at Alwyn cottages. Once he retired he moved one last time to live with his daughter at Market Bosworth where he celebrated his th birthday in , he passed away at home on the 6th January aged and 5 months and is buried with his wife in Swepstone churchyard.
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