More about Alg and Cyril

A post-script to my 2018 post about Chatteris men serving and dying in the First World War. Today I have been sorting photos on my PC, and noticed something for the first time.

On a visit back to Chatteris some years ago, I took photos of the named foundation stones in the street wall of what was the Chatteris Wesleyan Methodist Schoolroom.

It's now a private residence but was central to the lives of three generations of Grahams. I have known from childhood that my grandfather Alg was one of those for whom a stone was laid,

along with several other contemporaries who I also knew as senior members of the congregation, Sunday School teachers, etc.

Rosie Sharp, for one, who taught me in infant school, and later taught me in Sunday School, and tutored me for 'the Scripture Exam'.

And today, I noticed for the first time that a few along from Grandpa's stone is one for C.T. Lovell.

Grahams, Boards and Williams in 2024

Sadly (and yet it could have been so much worse) 2024 has been for our family the year of what used to be called 'the big C', but which increasingly (we have noticed since it affected us) is now spoken of openly.

First sister Lesley had a recurrence of something she had successfully weathered some years ago. As for many people, the progress towards full-on address and treatment seemed terribly slow, but eventually she had an extended sequence of radiation therapy which does seem to have done its job. The waiting was a strain, the weeks of treatment were a strain of a different sort, and the aftermath has been a slow clawback from persistent fatigue, but she is now reckoning herself back to something like 'normal'.

While Lesley was in the waiting stage, Jenny told us she too had been diagnosed with cancer. She had been struggling through the latter part of 2023 with unease in one hip, which initially she (and the medics too) treated as some sort of strain. But it didn't get better, and by about March 2024 she was in serious pain, unable to bear weight on that leg. And eventually the hip problem was diagnosed as a secondary cancer, the primary being in one lung.

Jenny was in hospital for about three weeks, and then for a much longer period convalescent/invalid at home. Nina was in Plymouth in support for about 4 months, with Ian there too for significant periods. Emily was a tower of strength. Again, we have to be grateful for the good news. Jenny has been on a targeted drug for 7 or 8 months now, and it has had a marked positive effect, particularly on the primary.
Jenny has faced it all with courage and resource, and was able to return to work on a 50% commitment when term started in the autumn. She continues to take great pleasure and satisfaction from her work. She has also been able to resume her connections with the National Gallery, giving guest lectures on zoom, and is now preparing for a role in a major new collaboration with Jeremy Deller. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/across-the-uk/the-triumph-of-art She has also rejoined her Rock Choir.

Nina and I resumed normal residence here in Clees Lane on July 23rd. Obviously, gardening in the usual sense was gone for this year, and the whole place was wildly overgrown. Amazing how quickly it reverts. We have gradually clawed things back, and have settled into a rather provisional 'normal' life-pattern, with Jenny always in our thoughts, and mercifully usually in easy touch, with modern coms.

Emily, meanwhile, is in the thick of middle life. Ben is still internationally working from home. Leo is in his second year at University, and Angharad is in her 'A' Level year. She is turning into quite a traveller, with solo trips to Montpellier and Valencia. Emily is still in the latter stages of her MA at King's London; but has turned aside somewhat since landing a temporary Research Fellowship at the Constitutional Society, preparing a report on the policy and practice of democratic education in English secondary schools, with a focus on constitutional literacy. https://consoc.org.uk/people/emily-board/

In the autumn Nina has joined a pottery class, which she is greatly enjoying. Ian proceeds through cycles of the heir-to-work in wood and stone, playing his music keyboards, and occasionally tinkering with cyber matters. He has, for instance, recently switched the (Linux) operating system on the computer he uses for writing and editing photos and going online. Like the other mentioned activities, this is a fascinating mixture of the application of skills, and the achievement of practical outcomes. He has also enjoyed learning how versatile an air-fryer is.

Storm Darragh hit us with a power cut around 10.15 a.m. on the Saturday (7/12), and it wasn't restored until 11 p.m. on the Monday (9/12). At a practical level, it wasn't too bad. We have log-burners at both ends of the house, and a reasonable stock of dry wood. And also a useful array of battery or rechargeable lights. But it did throw our usual routines and interests into sharp relief - no phone, no internet, no TV, very little mobile phone connectivity, computer time necessarily kept to a minimum - just cut off. It didn't make it easier to bear, that Ystalyfera and Godregraig generally weren't off for long, and houses within easy walking distance back to normal. (Others were even worse affected, of course - some didn't get power restored until the Wednesday or Thursday.) Our house faces East South East across the valley. In the manner of the Victorian workman's cottages these once were, we have biggish windows, originally sashes around 4' x 3', but only one per room, and those only on the front face. At this time of year, direct sunlight comes slantingly in two dimensions. And therefore there are in most rooms substantial dark corners to either side of the window, which in the case of the kitchen, is exactly where the sink and cooker are. The Monday morning brought sunshine, and it was interesting to see where the bright light fell. In the kitchen, mainly onto the stairs; in our bedroom, onto the face of the pine-end wall. In the room where my music keyboards are, they face into the room, so the light from the window falls on the cover of a score, not the music page I see when playing. Ie in no case did the external light contribute much to the functional lighting of the rooms.

The 4 Boards and the 3 Grahams will share Christmas in Plymouth - we shall all (Jenny included) be in a city-centre hotel for Christmas Eve night, and for the first time ever we shall 'eat out' on the 25th. Otherwise, we shall enjoy Jenny's elegant home.

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