Wigan Album

Great to see these as a born in 1935 going to school in the war and cousin lost at sea'
But think should read taken away not gave.

Rev David ,
Thank you for keeping these memorials in the public perception . It is the Parish of St.Thomas credit that they placed the arrangement of flowers to coincide with the anniversary of the plaque.

A lad from my street was killed in WW1 , I wrote a poem some years ago ,I hope viewers won't mind me sharing it.

JOHN KELLY.

John Kelly , who was he ? a man who gave his life for you and me , a man who left his home and friends to fight for freedom to fight the foe.

A life snuffed out before its time in the carnage of that horrendous war. Did he think of his Mother on that fateful day ? did he ponder days of yore?

Did his life before him flash ? did he have time to make his peace with God ? Did he think of a sweetheart, as life blood ebbed away, of children now denied ?

Did he wonder if his body would lie with the glorious dead in a fields wheat and corn, of poppies red and lilies white ? or was his shroud to be the earth and clay.

Did he shed a tear for times that might have been, of growing old with kith and kin? Could he have known in decades hence, a poet would ask ' John Kelly , who was he ?'

I had a cousin 'lost at sea', too, Neil - he was a stoker on HMS Glorious. Two of the eight local men who died on her were also stokers. Ironically, it was the smoke from the furnaces they fed which betrayed their ship's presence to the German battlecruisers which sank them. There is a mystery attached to the loss of the carrier and her escorts - reportedly another of Churchill's debacles. They were sailing detached from the main fleet evacuating Norway in June 1940. None of the spotter planes were in the air to warn of approaching enemy ships. It is said they were on a secret mission ordered by Churchill. Although about 900 men escaped the sinking - only 43 survived the cold Arctic waters before their eventual rescue after 3 days and nights.

My cousin Harold was on The Prince of Wales .Have the last image of him seeing us in his uniform on his last goodbye. Like many otthers was just a quiet 19 year old doing no harm to anyone.