The Horseman Goes to War IIN THE SUMMER of 1914, Hacconby and neighbouring Stainfield were quiet Lincolnshire farming communities whose rhythms had altered little for centuries. Spring brought ploughing and sowing. Summer promised long days for haymaking and harvest. Autumn filled the barns with wagonloads of grain and winter feed, while winter offered little respite …
From Farm Labourer to NCO SOMEWHERE AMONG THE rolling farmland of northern France, not far from a place called Vaurolet Farm, Sergeant Edward Ellis disappeared. There was no final letter home. No comrade was able to tell his parents exactly what befell him. And no grave marked the place where he met his end. 'Somewhere …
A Horseman of Hacconby AMONG THE NAMES carved upon the memorials of south Lincolnshire are men whose potentials were never realised, their lives cut short by war. Private Tom Hutchins was one such man. Tom was a young horseman working on one of the farms in the fen-edge village of Hacconby. He answered his country's …
Remembering the Men who Never Came Home OUTSIDE VILLAGE HALLS, beside churches, on roadside verges and in market squares, steel silhouettes of a First World War soldier stand in silent vigil. The familiar figure of 'Tommy Atkins' has become an increasingly common feature of remembrance throughout our towns and villages. He is often accompanied by …
Private William Ainger Howman, 1895–1916 AS WE HAVE learned in the previous post ― From the Farm to the Veldt ― Private Robert James Howman stepped off a train at Fakenham station in December, 1901 and returned home after almost seventeen years in the service of the Crown. His military career had carried him to …
The Evolution of a Word 'Don't be silly' FEW PHRASES CAN be more familiar to parents, teachers, and grandparents than the gentle reproach: 'Don't be silly.' We say it almost without thinking. A child may be climbing where they shouldn't, making fanciful claims, or simply being frivolous at an inconvenient moment, and out comes the …
Wills and Continuity in the Sandall Family WHEN WE THINK of inheritance in eighteenth-century rural England, we often imagine little more than the passing of possessions after death. But the wills left behind by members of the Sandal family of Rippingale suggest something altogether more deliberate. These highly-informative documents reveal ordinary villagers thinking strategically about …
IN THE COURSE of tracing my paternal family through the fenland parishes of south Lincolnshire, one crude, recurrent declaration stood out above all others: Occupation: Ag-Lab. Two blunt syllables. Generation after generation, the same entry appears in parish registers and census returns. Agricultural labourer. Not farmer. Not landowner. Not even cottager. But labourer. It is …
When a Song Disrupts Official Narratives SOME SONGS RESONATE with us through life—songs that entertain, comfort, or simply remind us who we once were. There are some, however, that do something more unsettling: they ask us to confront uncomfortable truths. Singer/songwriter, Harvey Andrews wrote one such song in 1972. It was called 'Soldier.' Its simple, …
A Warship for Uncertain Times IN MY PREVIOUS post — 'May They Both Flourish' — I looked at what it was to be sailor aboard the Royal Navy's County Class cruiser, HMS Shropshire, during World War Two. Here, in a post that will draw a curtain on the series covering my father's wartime naval experience, …
RAVEN MOON 