Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One. My maternal grandfather, Cecil Albany Manley, was born in St. Austell (Cornwall) on 11th September 1898 and, together with his brother Wilf, he enlisted in the Army at Devonport Recruitment Office on 14th April 1913. He was a Lance Bombardier in 153 Battery, 18 Company, Royal Garrison Artillery, part of the British 4th Army led by Sir Henry Rawlinson. As a certified Gun Layer, he didnt see action on the Western Front until August 1916, with his unit - which was responsible for 4 x 6in Howitzers that required incredibly strong mules to haul the guns through thick mud - but when he did it was shocking enough for him to rarely talk about it to folks back home. After suffering the debilitating effects of Mustard Gas poisoning one month before Armistice Day in 1918, Cecil was pulled back to the RAMC Base Hospital No. 12 at Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on the bank of the River Seine near Rouen. The camp was a very large collection of tents assembled on a racecourse (see picture in archive). Its location was convenient for downward movement by boat to the main port at Le Havre, from where he would be evacuated back to England via Hospital ship. As a result of this experience, he regarded himself as one of the lucky ones. He was eventually discharged from military service at Dover Castle on 13th April 1925, after receiving vocational training as a builder at the Army Vocational Training Centre in Hounslow, West London. Through his whole working life he worked as a builder, but more specifically as a superb Lime Plasterer; there are many properties in east Cornwall that are the product of his exacting standard of craftsmanship that are standing to this day! As a student in Plymouth, I did have several opportunities when I could have sat him down (with a bottle or two of Guinness) and made tape recordings of him talking about his experiences. Would he have given me more than the snippets we used to get about his time in the Somme, I wonder? Ill never know.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:04:16 +0000
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