The Horseman who Rode East FOR MOST YOUNG men of the Lincolnshire fenlands in the early 1900s, life seemed destined never to carry them far from the place where they began. For Walter Sandall, that place was the quiet fenland village of Rippingale. Here, the rhythm of life was aligned to the seasons, the weather …
The Double Sacrifice JOHN WILLIAM SANDALL is, in many ways, representative of countless young men from rural Lincolnshire whose lives followed the steady rhythm of the seasons until the First World War shattered the familiar order of things. He was a cousin of mine, and this is his story. JOHN WAS BORN at Rippingale in …
Changing Landscapes WHEN ROBERT WAND left Hacconby in September, 1914 he could scarcely have imagined that, two years later, the war that pundits considered would be ‘over by Christmas’ would continue to consume men at an unimaginable rate. Expected to last only a few months, the conflict had become one of endurance, measured not in …
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 …
MY INTEREST IN The Battle of the Atlantic runs deep. You see, both my grandfather and my father served in the Royal Navy during wartime. During WW1, my grandfather, then a Chief Petty Officer, was a master gunner aboard the iconic battleship, HMS Dreadnought. HMS Dreadnought A couple of decades later, in WW2, my father …
‘Nothing in the papers, not the most vivid & heartbreaking descriptions, have made me realise war like your letters.’ Vera Brittain, writing to Roland Leighton, her future fiancée, on 17 April, 1915 In his remarkable book ‘On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft,’ author Stephen King states: ‘If you want to be a writer, …
