Barlick War Memorial Research

[Thomo]

Having now found an aerial photograph that is possibly fairly recent and comparing it with the Council plan, I may now have the key to how the numbering system works and should be able to produce a workable version of it later today.

[Thomo]

Where to begin? Having had several good looks at the data for the Cemetery, I had an idea about how the system works in relation to the Pendle Council plan. This afternoon I spent a couple of hours down at Ghyll, and using Wilfred Anker's grave location as a start point soon found out how it works. Area "A" is the key, in this area working from the West to the East, or the top to the bottom, Wilfreds plot is on row "H", the 8th row down from the top of area "A", I soon found all of the others in that area using this as a base. The same logic applies to area "B". Each area is sub divided into rows starting at the top or Western end, the first row being A, then B and so on. The numerical order of the graves in these area's is from North to West, or right to left, ie. Wilfred's is "H"37 and W G Jackson is "G"36, only feet away. William Mitchell would have eluded Ian as it is a new one, "I"31, again very near. So what about the Churchyard? again a similar system applies. More work will have to be done on this. This does not end here however as other discoveries were made. Two names on the War Memorial have always eluded further research, R W Antcliffe 1965 and R E Roberts 1967. This afternoon I found R W Antcliffe in the Churchyard, Royal Corp's of Transport died aged 22 in 1965, 4 rows back from the end of the Church Tower. There is also a new one on row "C" of area "B" in the Cemetery, Fl Lt. Jack Stearn McWicker died 29th of October 2013, that's another one for the War Memorial

[PanBiker]

Interesting Peter, RW Antcliffe has been known to me and on my list for a number of years as has Jack Stearn McWhicker. I'm fairly certain that is the one that is fashioned in grey marble or similar but still in the CWGC style. Can't quite understand your date on it though as I have been putting a cross on it for a number of years. I don't record the dates on my list as a matter of course as I only need to know where they are for the remembrance cross distribution.

[Thomo]

I didn't have my specs with me today, but I will be going back for a more in depth look shortly. Regardless of date I believe that both McWicker and Mitchell are possible candidates for future addition to the War Memorial. I will be attending the meeting at Ghyll on Wednesday by which time I should be able to present a copy of the main layout in respect of WW1.

[Thomo]

This picture illustrates how the numbering system works in Ghyll Cemetery in area "A". Wilfred Anker is grave 37 in row "H", in the foreground is William Mitchell, grave 31 on row "I", and in the background is William J Jackson, grave 36 in row "G".

[Wendyf]

Obit. for Jack Stearn McWicker.

[Thomo]

Many thanks for that Wendy, I had the date right after all. It also appears now that a similar area division to the one in the Cemetery exists in the Churchyard. CWGC has AB Kenneth Bradley as being in area "A" grave 6, his headstone is app 10 rows from the west in the South Western area of the Churchyard and about six in from the dividing pathway. Another visit and a good old fashioned think may resolve this.

[PanBiker]

It was a good day for the annual remembrance cross distribution down at Ghyll. I made a start just after 10.00am and had sorted the Cemetery by lunchtime. I nipped home for a brew and something to eat then returned to do the Churchyard this afternoon.

As is the norm, I could not find everyone on my list. There have been quite a few headstone lay downs particularly in the churchyard and a lot of leaves and twigs strewn around. But I did manage to find another not on my list who is on a family plot in the lower cemetery. Flt Sgt Pilot Malcolm Mason Stemeridge age 21 killed on air operations 31/3/44. He will be added for future years.

All that I could not find have been recorded on crosses and set up in small batches in the relative areas of the cemetery and churchyard. Including a small number of veterans that I mark and the new addition a total of 69 distributed.

Not found this year in the cemetery





Not found in the churchyard

[Stanley]

Dedication and tidiness Ian! Let's hear it for OCD it comes in handy at times.....

[Thomo]

Will this help Ian. The two Shires brothers are on a family stone, which was moss covered and on its back in 2011.




Here are 3 others:-

Walter Strickland



Arthur Green. Row "P" plot 4. This could be covered as there is a large bush near that place.




James Parkinson




In the 70s, a fair number of damaged stones were removed and added to the landfill at the Eastern end of the Church, other displaced ones were put around the borders of the Churchyard, and many are now covered with earth and grass.

[PanBiker]

Thanks for those Peter. After a few hours scanning the cemetery and churchyard you tend to get "headstone blindness". No problem at all with Pte Green's CWGC's headstone, its always the ones on the family plots that go temporary AWOL. In some ways I think a few crosses annotated with individual names around the periphery may well serve a greater purpose in impacting those visitors to the site around this time of year.

I saw three gents out walking consulting their maps just outside the churchyard. They looked as if they were scratching their heads so I enquired if they needed assistance. They showed me where they wanted to go and I pointed them down the path between the churchyard and cemetery down to toward the beck, (they wanted the footpath over the hill by the radio mast). They asked why the cemetery had a CWGC notice on the gate. I explained that all UK cemeteries are being annotated as such if they contain CWGC plots, they had no idea that community cemeteries were used as such They were all older than me as well!

[Thomo]

Work on my planned maps of the Churchyard and Cemetery is currently on hold, and will re commence next year. Next week I have been asked to give a talk on the significance of the Poppy to the Rainbow Group, 5 year olds. They will be present this coming Sunday afternoon at the Remembrance event. This week a nice "thank you" came from the Senior Archivist at the CWGC for their copy of the book, I am going to see if they can get something done about Wilfred Anker (again) a name to contact sometimes works!

[Sue]

image.jpg

The Todmorden U3A craft group have made this to go on the Tod memorial. Whilst making my poppies I could not help but think of the lost members from my family, Bert Spencer,( my great aunts husband of 7 months) John Oldfield ( my mums fiancé) and my dads brother Bob Marriott.

[Thomo]

The story of the Poppy, and its use for Remembrance is in itself quite remarkable:-

During the First World War (1914–1918) much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. Previously beautiful countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over, again and again. The landscape swiftly turned to fields of mud, bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow.

Bright red Flanders poppies (Papaver rhoeas) however, were delicate but resilient flowers and grew in their thousands, flourishing even in the middle of chaos and destruction. In the spring of 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lt Col John McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies to write a now famous poem called "In Flanders Fields".

Poppies for Remembrance

The first poppies came from France, McCrae’s poem in turn inspired an American academic, Moina Michael to make handmade red silk poppies which were then brought to England by a French lady, Anna Guerin. The (Royal) British Legion, formed in 1921, ordered 9 million of the poppies which they sold on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately and that first ever 'Poppy Appeal' raised over £106,000, a huge amount of money at the time.

The following year, Major George Howson, who had received the Military Cross for his role in the First World War, set up a factory off the Old Kent Road in London where five disabled ex-Servicemen began making poppies. 3 years later the Poppy Factory moved to its current site in Richmond, Surrey and today produces millions of poppies each year.

At the last meeting of the Remembrance Sunday Working Group here I raised the issue about the wreaths for the Armed Forces, to be more precise the lack in recent years of wreaths for the Army and Air Force. The local Cadets will provide the Army one and present it at the Memorial, a representative for the RAF could not be found in time and so I have added them to my Naval Wreath centrepiece:-

[PanBiker]

A little more on the development of the poppies over the years to what we see today. Throughout the 1960's and 70's as well as his secretarial roll in the local British Legion branch and the same for SSAFA my dad was also poppy coordinator. The poppies at that time were not as we see them today. The poppy itself consisted of a wire with the poppy head made from two petals mounted on top of each other and secured to the end of the wire with a moulded on plastic cap which formed the centre of the poppy, this was embossed with "Earl Haig Fund on the front face. The leaves were supplied separately and were similar to what we have today but slightly darker green and had a longer stalk with a hole punched in. The poppies were delivered to branches weeks before and this time was used to construct sprays by threading leaves on the stalks sometimes with more than one poppy using the wire stalk of the second poppy to secure. The stems were then wrapped with aluminium foil strips which again were supplied in separate boxes. The foil strips were about half an inch wide by 6" long and were actually boxes of surplus "window" chaff as used by the RAF during WWII to confuse enemy radar. I spent lots of evenings constructing poppies with mum and dad in the weeks before November.

With the advent of better plastic moulding techniques the remembrance poppy has developed into what we see today, a four part snap together design, the centre is now embossed with the words "Poppy Appeal" and is a simple push on snap fit method of attaching the leaf and petals to the plastic stem.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.