Two Chatteris boys, killed the same day, June 15th, 1918

At 11 a.m. , on June 15th 2018, at Chatteris War Memorial, Cambs, two local men will be/ were remembered, on the exact centenary of their deaths on the Western Front. They were both killed by shell fire. They were not in the same unit or location - their graves are more than 260 km apart - and yet I have 'one degree of separation' connections to both of them. This blog, and an associated post on Facebook on the exact anniversary, remembers them, in recognition of what seems to me a strange coincidence, and on behalf of my late grandfather and grandmother, who are my respective links to them. One, Cyril Lovell, was (as told to me in boyhood) 'Grandpa's best friend'; and the other, Fred Squires, was Grandma's cousin (she was christened Dora Squires Kemp). I don't know whether there was any connection between the two men in life. From my own memories of growing up in Chatteris, fifty years later, I would guess that they probably 'knew of' each other. They might well both have attended the (then new) King Edward School at the same time. But beyond that, they probably moved in very different circles in the town. My grandfather, Alg(ernon) Kirton Graham, also served on the Western Front, in the RFC and then the RAF. He came home safe, and here am I, a hundred years on, and all but fifty years older than either Cyril or Fred ever was, to remember. Grandma's mother and Fred's father were brother and sister. Grandma was the youngest of her family, and about six years older than Fred - it is tempting to surmise that she might sometimes have 'kept an eye on' him in his boyhood. What I do know, and remember very clearly, is that around 1960, she and Grandpa took their summer holiday in Eastbourne, and when they came, she spoke, in that sadly portentous way women of her generation had, of looking across the Channel towards France, and thinking of 'all those who went over there, and never came back'. The Squires were, obviously, 'a generation further back' to us growing up in Chatteris in the 50's and 60's. But the link is there in the genes. My sister Lesley is now a living reminder of Grandma and her sister Emily, and we know from family history and old photos that that particular 'face' is actually a Squires look. The links to Cyril Lovell also go wide and long. My sister Lesley and I had a classic rocking horse handed down to us in the 1950's, from our cousins-once-removed Richard and Alison Graham, and my memory is that it originally came from the Lovells. Much later, of course, Lovell and Ward took over Graham and Fisher's premises at 36 High Street, as acquired and set up by my great-grandfather Tom Graham, home, and later workplace, to Alg and his brother Spencer (father of Richard and Alison). My father Douglas, and later my mother, and Richard, all worked there. And Mum, Dad and I lived in rooms there briefly in 1947 - 50. (Those who actually remember the original Lovell and Ward's store, which occupied the triangular plot where Railway Lane runs into High Street -now a paved public space - must all be pensioners, I think.)

Miss Gertrude Freeman

Cyril had been engaged to Miss Gertrude Freeman. She never married, and lived to extreme old age - and I have two 'one degree of separation' connections to her.

One is, again, through Grandpa. She and he (and Spencer) were members together of 'The Rainbows' concert party in Chatteris between the wars (see photo). My grandfather is seated in the middle, front row. Gertrude Freeman is seated to his left. Spencer is standing, back right. 

 

The web widens.....

The other link to Miss Freeman is through the late Rev. Peter Collingwood. 

Peter was a son of the well-known March family. 

He, like me, though long before me, went to March Grammar School and then read English at Cambridge. 

When Nina and I went in 1970 to teach at Thekwane School, in what was then still UDI Rhodesia, he was our Headmaster. 

He and I remained in annual touch to the end of his life. When he retired from Africa, he served as a Methodist circuit minister, including a term at Portland - where he found Gertrude Freeman as one of his flock, and each year he would mention her in his Christmas letter to me.He must have been aware of some link to have ever mentioned her, though I don't now recall what that link was. 

And one more to remember.....

There is a fourth young Chatteris man I would like to remember here. Lieut. Percival Angood RFC had been killed the previous year, in a flying accident. Unlike Cyril, he was not 'remembered to me', in my boyhood, and yet it now seems very likely that he and Alg (and possibly Cyril) would have known each other, and perhaps had a more specific relationship, either as friends, or possibly as rivals. Percy and Alg both went to March Grammar School, both their fathers were ironmongers on Chatteris High Street, and both of them worked in their father's businesses before joining up. They were both, also, Methodists, and organists.

ANGOOD, Percival George

 2nd Lt, Royal Flying Corps. Killed (flying accident, England) 11-9-17, age 23. Only son of George & Mary Ann Angood, 48 New Rd; husband of Grace Annetta Angood (nee Buck), married July 1917. Formerly Honourable Artillery Company. Chatteris General (Meeks) Cemetery. At the time of his death he was serving as a pilot with No. 7 Aircraft Acceptance Park, Kenley, Surrey, a unit which flight-tested new aircraft from local manufacturers. Killed flying a RE.8. Had previously served with 2nd Battalion, HAC.

http://chatteris.ccan.co.uk/content/catalogue_item/chatteris-ww1-soldier-percival-angood-chatteris-remembers-biography

My Angood link

I also have more specific links to Percy's (as surely he must have been, as Algernon was 'Alg'?) wider family, though I haven't checked out his exact relationship.
There were three children born in 1921, and christened together in the Methodist church: my father Douglas, his cousin Gertrude Whitehorn, and Harold Angood, of Honeysome.
Dad was the Player King to Harold's Hamlet at MGS in the 30's, and Gertrude and Harold were 'young sweethearts' who married. They and their three children, John, Jill and Joy, were very much part of the Graham/Kemp extended family in which I grew up in Chatteris in the 1950's and 60's, and I am still in touch with all three, my second cousins on the Kemp line ie we share common great grand-parents, Elias and Jane (Jenny) Kemp.

Reflections in closing

the strange richness of the webs that link us, in time and space


both Cyril and Percy enlisted via the H.A.C. Was this coincidence ? Was it known as a fast-track for would-be pilots ? Was there a specific Chatteris/Cambridgeshire link ?


the vagaries of the class system in 1914-18. All four men remembered here were much of a class. Two became officers. The one who was probably the most-highly educated of the 4           ( A.K.G., who did Higher School Certificate, and was remembered on the old MGS honours boards) never advanced beyond L.A.C.


I have no current links to Squires in Chatteris, though the genes persist, strongly !