From Corky. Both my Grandfathers were killed in WW1 but I didn't get my interest in it from those facts. As a little boy of 7 or 8 I read the newspaper to an old lady sick in bed. She gave me her son's effects. He had been an officer in the Hallamshire Reg, Charles Budd. I never lost my interest and it was dynamised by discovering the fate of my grandfathers. I was for a time a battle-field tour guide and I have written a book "Corky's War" the Diary of s stretcher bearer. if JOe Curran would like to see film of the crew of an armed trawler shooting mines with a .303 he would do well to acquire the DVD/TV documentary "Hull at War" part 2 which I researched wrote and presented. With regard to my paternal grandfather GH Fairfax East Yorks KIA Neuve Chapelle March 24th 1915 I had a strange experience. In 1970 I bought the "Death Penny" (The large Bronze medal given the families of the KIA. I shall write a post relating to this later) of a soldier Seth Heap. In 1984 visiting the grave of my grandfather at Houplines in France I was shocked to find that Seth Heap was in the same cemetery. I then found that they had been killed on the same day together.
Re: The start of my research and a reply to Joe Curran A reply to Joe Curran from Corky. It may be that the film of Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve crewmen on board an Armed Trawler shooting at mines is in another of my productions "TrawlerTowns". It is such a long time since I wrote the script I am afraid I have forgotten and I haven't got a copy to look at. On the question of armed trawlers I have just had some information on the sinking of one. She was "The Ladylove" sunk by a torpedo from a German U boat in 1941. In the U boat Captains's log he describes the trawler sinking in 15 seconds with all hands. The skipper was one Charles Crozier Fletcher. He had been a skipper on a trawler during "The Dogger Bank Incident" when Russian Warships of the Second Pacific Fleet (One time Baltic Fleet) fired on Hull and Grimsby Trawlers fishing in the North Sea. Again see another of my works "The Spy who had no faith in the World". The relevance of introducing this point is that in 1904 when this happened the danger of war was not with the Germans but with the Russians. They were at the time part of one of the forgotten wars that led to the major conflict of 1914/18;The Russo-Japanese War. During the Russo-Japanese war the British Empire almost went to war with Imperial Russia. She commandeered a British ship believing it to be carrying war contraband, The P and O ship "Malacca" and then sank another British ship "The Knight Commander" by shell-fire for the same reason. Opening fire on British Trawlers thinking they were torpedo boats sinking some and killing three men and injuring many others was almost the last straw for the British Navy and for weeks the threat of war was in the air. British public opinion whipped up by the "new" press was in favour. The history of that time is now forgotten and overshadowed by 14/18 and Russia an ally by the outbreak.
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