Influences of war
Posted: 12 Feb 2014, 08:14
I have just started writing my second Genealogy book called MY WIDDUP FAMILY. at the same time my writing group have selected a topic about war. Here is my contribution, linking the two topics together. As far as possible the content of this essay is based on fact. Since writing it I have discovered a great deal more about where my missing grandfather went to
Influences of War
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the war. Which you may ask? Both I would say. Let us go back to the year of 1915. My grandmother at that time was plain Nellie Proctor, a spinster living with sisters Emma, Ruth and Clara, brother Ward and father James. Mother Sarah had died in 1912 in March, just before the Titanic disaster, My Dad often said that his mother, Nellie was very young to lose her mother and that she had no one to talk to and ask about life. Others may say she was a worldly woman who knew her own mind and new exactly what she was doing. Clara, poor Clara, a young teacher was madly in love with Albert Spencer from Rawtenstall also a young teacher whose fate was not yet known. He was to marry his love on Christmas Eve of 1915 only to be killed in tragic circumstances on the war front not three months later. He was not meant to be on the front line, he was a translator not a fighter. I know little more except my Great Aunt Clara with whom I shared a birthday and many interests, NEVER married again. Emma too suffered the misfortunes of war as her fiancée was also killed . I never knew the details. So Emma and Clara spent the rest of their lives as victims of war living together as happened to so many female siblings of the time, never remarrying , never having children. Why do I mention these two brave ladies, why because they were influential in the upbringing of Nellie's children and myself, as substitutes for their own lack of offspring as a result of war.
In another part of Burnley father James Proctor was a manager of a mill. It wasn't his first form of employment being amongst other things a provisions merchant, insurance agent, bookkeeper and a secretary to a cotton mill company. In the early 1900s times were hard in the cotton industry in Burnley, there were strikes and worker takeovers resulting in James becoming a mill manager. This brought many advantages to his family including climbing up the social hierarchy. The young Proctor women were often seen dancing at the Mayors ball and other such events. They were young women who all had striking looks, thick dark wavy hair, brown eyes and heavy attractive eyebrows, inherited from their maternal grandfather Jonathon Ward, a well established and financially secure pork butcher and delicatessen with great standing in the community. They were young women who were desirable companions, young women with a future. The mill in James hands went from strength to strength, even attracting trainees and apprentices from as far a field as Italy. One young Italian, we are led to believe became one of the many who sought the company of the Proctor girls and particularly that of young Nellie. Unfortunately for Nellie this romance was to be short lived, as Italy joined the allies in WW1 in April 1915, and the young apprentice had to return home to join the forces.
Elsewhere at this time the young men of Burnley were signing up for the Kings Shilling. A certain Wilfred Marriott joined the Royal Field Artillery in December 1914, but was declared unfit for service in the following January as he fell from a horse which resulted in a hernia. In September of that year he attempted once again to sign up, this time with the Royal Army Medical Corps, but was again rejected for the same reason in November. At some time during this year, if not before, Wilfred and Nellie became very well acquainted. This did not meet with the approval of the Proctor and Ward families of Burnley, who were staunch Liberals. Wilfred's father was the chairman of the Social Democratic Federation in Burnley in the 1890s, and an ardent Marxist. For whatever reason, and we can only speculate, Wilfred and Nellie went to London in October 1915 and married at Clerkenwell registry Office. In January 1916 there first child was born, presumably at full term as he was a healthy bouncing baby with classic Proctor colouring rather than the lighter more blond features of his father. So the reason for the rapid trip to London was apparent, an advanced pregnancy of about 6 months. A classic story of the era, young men going to war who thought they would never see their loved ones again, love could not necessarily be balanced with marriage. Nellie was one of the lucky ones, she got her man. OR did she? As Wilfred junior grew up his dark features became more pronounced, his skin took on a more heavy pigmentation than his two younger brothers, James and Robert who looked like identical twins despite the 4 years difference in their age. People started to talk. Did these three boys have the same father? No one will ever know, and to this day the next generation of Marriott's have often discussed the possibility, carefully examining family photos of the time. The evidence seems irrefutable barring DNA analysis. Wilfred junior was probably the son of a certain Italian apprentice, and there is no doubt in the minds of the present Marriott generation and of James, my Dad, that he was the favourite child. Presumably the Italian was the love of Nellie's life. Whether Wilfred senior was a quick catch following an advancing pregnancy or whether Nellie did not know she was pregnant when she started a relationship with him, we will never know. Wilfred abandoned his family in 1925 and Nellie, long since died has taken her secret with her.
So where do I fit in? I would not be here if the Italians had not joined the war, if the apprentice had stayed in Burnley. With him gone there was a new love, a new relationship and a father to my own father, my genes were beginning to be set in WW1.
What of WW2? Well this brings me over the Pennines to the steel making capital of Sheffield, By this time the Marriott family had moved to this city, and settled with a new father, away from the rumours of Burnley. They had a happy upbringing apart from the normal ups and downs of family life. In 1939 when the boys were 23, 22 and 18 WW2 broke out. Wilfred junior was not called up as he worked in a protected occupation i.e. the manufacture of aeroplanes, James, my Dad received his call up papers in March 1940, the day his paternal grandmother died. Robert was called up a little later but a tragic training accident on an airfield in Morecambe saw his life whipped from him due to fluke weather conditions. Roberts body was brought home arriving on the 25th birthday of James, Valentines Day 1942. It was a loss the family never got over.
Before the war James, lets call him Jim, often frequented the centre of Sheffield where he worked and his father worked. After his initial RAF training he was based near his home in Rotherham as a barrage balloon operator, being chosen due to his grammar school education. So his regular visits to the city continued. Now Jim was rather partial to sherbet lemon sweets, (so much so that a jar of the said sweets accompanied him on his last journey when he died on his 95th birthday). Therefore he often called into a sweet shop in the city centre where he indulged in a little mild flirting with the pretty young 16 year old shop assistant, called Sallie. In December 1940 Sheffield endured its famous Blitz, The city centre was seriously damaged, including the sweet shop. For some time Jim assumed Sallie had perished with the shop, that is until a couple of years later when he came to his family home for tea to find her sitting there with his elder brother's girlfriend, Marna. Sallie and Jim were reunited and remained friend for years, double dating as friends with Wilfred junior and Marna.
After the Sheffield Blitz, little is known about Sallie until this time. She developed a relationship with a young song writer called John, who lived next door to her parents in the Woodhouse region of Sheffield. John joined the Green Howard's where he fought in the Western Europe Campaign, and on her 19th birthday in 1942 Sallie joined the Land army where she was located in Derby. John, Jim and Sallie were good friends, whilst John and Sallies romance blossomed. In April 1944, on Sallies 21st birthday they became engaged. It was this same year, in September, that tragedy struck. John was killed on the Western Europe Campaign, blown up by a hand grenade as he tried to throw it away from where it had landed near his comrades. Sallie turned to her friend Jim, his and her own family for consolation and support. Over the next 18 months support blossomed into romance. Marriage followed in December 1945. Sallie never forgot her first love, and I have kept all the letters that she had and Johns belongings that were on him when he died. Jim always knew about and understood this lost love but continued to support and love Sallie though out her life. In the 1990s he even arranged a trip to the cemetery in France where John is buried. I have the photographs, which are kept with the letters and other personal effects. Sallie was my Mum. Her first love was part of her but never detracted from her second love, Jim, my Dad.
War influences relationships, how they begin and how they develop. War influences who survives and lives to love again. War influences the children born into future generations. War influenced who I am, indeed the fact that I exist at all. Without war my grandmother would probably have married her Italian and my Dad would not have existed and neither would I. Without war my Mum would probably have married John and I would not have existed. So my genes are complete. WW1 brought me the genes from my Dad, WW2 the genes from my Mum. I am glad to be alive but I will not rejoice in the tragedy of others.
Sue Hayter
February 2014
Influences of War
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the war. Which you may ask? Both I would say. Let us go back to the year of 1915. My grandmother at that time was plain Nellie Proctor, a spinster living with sisters Emma, Ruth and Clara, brother Ward and father James. Mother Sarah had died in 1912 in March, just before the Titanic disaster, My Dad often said that his mother, Nellie was very young to lose her mother and that she had no one to talk to and ask about life. Others may say she was a worldly woman who knew her own mind and new exactly what she was doing. Clara, poor Clara, a young teacher was madly in love with Albert Spencer from Rawtenstall also a young teacher whose fate was not yet known. He was to marry his love on Christmas Eve of 1915 only to be killed in tragic circumstances on the war front not three months later. He was not meant to be on the front line, he was a translator not a fighter. I know little more except my Great Aunt Clara with whom I shared a birthday and many interests, NEVER married again. Emma too suffered the misfortunes of war as her fiancée was also killed . I never knew the details. So Emma and Clara spent the rest of their lives as victims of war living together as happened to so many female siblings of the time, never remarrying , never having children. Why do I mention these two brave ladies, why because they were influential in the upbringing of Nellie's children and myself, as substitutes for their own lack of offspring as a result of war.
In another part of Burnley father James Proctor was a manager of a mill. It wasn't his first form of employment being amongst other things a provisions merchant, insurance agent, bookkeeper and a secretary to a cotton mill company. In the early 1900s times were hard in the cotton industry in Burnley, there were strikes and worker takeovers resulting in James becoming a mill manager. This brought many advantages to his family including climbing up the social hierarchy. The young Proctor women were often seen dancing at the Mayors ball and other such events. They were young women who all had striking looks, thick dark wavy hair, brown eyes and heavy attractive eyebrows, inherited from their maternal grandfather Jonathon Ward, a well established and financially secure pork butcher and delicatessen with great standing in the community. They were young women who were desirable companions, young women with a future. The mill in James hands went from strength to strength, even attracting trainees and apprentices from as far a field as Italy. One young Italian, we are led to believe became one of the many who sought the company of the Proctor girls and particularly that of young Nellie. Unfortunately for Nellie this romance was to be short lived, as Italy joined the allies in WW1 in April 1915, and the young apprentice had to return home to join the forces.
Elsewhere at this time the young men of Burnley were signing up for the Kings Shilling. A certain Wilfred Marriott joined the Royal Field Artillery in December 1914, but was declared unfit for service in the following January as he fell from a horse which resulted in a hernia. In September of that year he attempted once again to sign up, this time with the Royal Army Medical Corps, but was again rejected for the same reason in November. At some time during this year, if not before, Wilfred and Nellie became very well acquainted. This did not meet with the approval of the Proctor and Ward families of Burnley, who were staunch Liberals. Wilfred's father was the chairman of the Social Democratic Federation in Burnley in the 1890s, and an ardent Marxist. For whatever reason, and we can only speculate, Wilfred and Nellie went to London in October 1915 and married at Clerkenwell registry Office. In January 1916 there first child was born, presumably at full term as he was a healthy bouncing baby with classic Proctor colouring rather than the lighter more blond features of his father. So the reason for the rapid trip to London was apparent, an advanced pregnancy of about 6 months. A classic story of the era, young men going to war who thought they would never see their loved ones again, love could not necessarily be balanced with marriage. Nellie was one of the lucky ones, she got her man. OR did she? As Wilfred junior grew up his dark features became more pronounced, his skin took on a more heavy pigmentation than his two younger brothers, James and Robert who looked like identical twins despite the 4 years difference in their age. People started to talk. Did these three boys have the same father? No one will ever know, and to this day the next generation of Marriott's have often discussed the possibility, carefully examining family photos of the time. The evidence seems irrefutable barring DNA analysis. Wilfred junior was probably the son of a certain Italian apprentice, and there is no doubt in the minds of the present Marriott generation and of James, my Dad, that he was the favourite child. Presumably the Italian was the love of Nellie's life. Whether Wilfred senior was a quick catch following an advancing pregnancy or whether Nellie did not know she was pregnant when she started a relationship with him, we will never know. Wilfred abandoned his family in 1925 and Nellie, long since died has taken her secret with her.
So where do I fit in? I would not be here if the Italians had not joined the war, if the apprentice had stayed in Burnley. With him gone there was a new love, a new relationship and a father to my own father, my genes were beginning to be set in WW1.
What of WW2? Well this brings me over the Pennines to the steel making capital of Sheffield, By this time the Marriott family had moved to this city, and settled with a new father, away from the rumours of Burnley. They had a happy upbringing apart from the normal ups and downs of family life. In 1939 when the boys were 23, 22 and 18 WW2 broke out. Wilfred junior was not called up as he worked in a protected occupation i.e. the manufacture of aeroplanes, James, my Dad received his call up papers in March 1940, the day his paternal grandmother died. Robert was called up a little later but a tragic training accident on an airfield in Morecambe saw his life whipped from him due to fluke weather conditions. Roberts body was brought home arriving on the 25th birthday of James, Valentines Day 1942. It was a loss the family never got over.
Before the war James, lets call him Jim, often frequented the centre of Sheffield where he worked and his father worked. After his initial RAF training he was based near his home in Rotherham as a barrage balloon operator, being chosen due to his grammar school education. So his regular visits to the city continued. Now Jim was rather partial to sherbet lemon sweets, (so much so that a jar of the said sweets accompanied him on his last journey when he died on his 95th birthday). Therefore he often called into a sweet shop in the city centre where he indulged in a little mild flirting with the pretty young 16 year old shop assistant, called Sallie. In December 1940 Sheffield endured its famous Blitz, The city centre was seriously damaged, including the sweet shop. For some time Jim assumed Sallie had perished with the shop, that is until a couple of years later when he came to his family home for tea to find her sitting there with his elder brother's girlfriend, Marna. Sallie and Jim were reunited and remained friend for years, double dating as friends with Wilfred junior and Marna.
After the Sheffield Blitz, little is known about Sallie until this time. She developed a relationship with a young song writer called John, who lived next door to her parents in the Woodhouse region of Sheffield. John joined the Green Howard's where he fought in the Western Europe Campaign, and on her 19th birthday in 1942 Sallie joined the Land army where she was located in Derby. John, Jim and Sallie were good friends, whilst John and Sallies romance blossomed. In April 1944, on Sallies 21st birthday they became engaged. It was this same year, in September, that tragedy struck. John was killed on the Western Europe Campaign, blown up by a hand grenade as he tried to throw it away from where it had landed near his comrades. Sallie turned to her friend Jim, his and her own family for consolation and support. Over the next 18 months support blossomed into romance. Marriage followed in December 1945. Sallie never forgot her first love, and I have kept all the letters that she had and Johns belongings that were on him when he died. Jim always knew about and understood this lost love but continued to support and love Sallie though out her life. In the 1990s he even arranged a trip to the cemetery in France where John is buried. I have the photographs, which are kept with the letters and other personal effects. Sallie was my Mum. Her first love was part of her but never detracted from her second love, Jim, my Dad.
War influences relationships, how they begin and how they develop. War influences who survives and lives to love again. War influences the children born into future generations. War influenced who I am, indeed the fact that I exist at all. Without war my grandmother would probably have married her Italian and my Dad would not have existed and neither would I. Without war my Mum would probably have married John and I would not have existed. So my genes are complete. WW1 brought me the genes from my Dad, WW2 the genes from my Mum. I am glad to be alive but I will not rejoice in the tragedy of others.
Sue Hayter
February 2014