In Memory ~ Never Forget by Nancy M Bell

To find out more about Nancy's work click on the cover above. 

 My novel His Brother's Bride is very roughly based on my grandparent's story. We lived with my grandparents when I was younger and I can vividly remember my grandfather shaving and picking bits of shrapnel out of his face. This was many years after the end of World War One. Both Grampa Pritchard and his brother came to Canada as Dr. Barnardo's home children. They were shipped from Liverpool sheltering homes to eastern Ontario. Although they came a year apart, they were fortunate enough to end up close to each other near Eaganville Ontario. Grampa was given to the Wilcox family, Uncle Joe with the Mills. When World War One broke out he volunteered and lied about his age in order to be sent to Europe. His brother, my great Uncle Joe, enlisted after Grampa did. Grampa was a sapper and part of the engineering corps who went ahead to set up first aide areas and infrastructure. Along with others, he was buried for three days in rubble when the area they were working in was bombed. He was also gassed with mustard gas on six different occasions. 

 Uncle Joe was a private in the 21st Battalion of the Canadian Infantry (Eastern Ontario Regiment) and was lost on August 8, 1918 in an early morning Somme offensive near the village of Marcelcave at the age of 25. He is buried in France at Crucifix Corner Cemetary Villers-Bretonneux which is a village in the Department of the Somme, on the road from Amiens to St Quentin. CRUCIFIX CORNER CEMETERY is south of the village at the crossing of the road to Demuin and the road from Cachy to Marcelcave. 

Following the war, the British War Medal, Victory Medal, Plaque (Dead Man’s Penny) and Scroll were sent to his brother, Herbert Pritchard, c/o C.B. St. George, Sprucedale, Ontario

I wrote the following poem for Uncle Joe. 

 Somme Sleep 

 Crouched and ready we wait, 

Dawn is late in coming 

And when it does it is shrouded In mist and fog 

It is more than the damp and wet 

That sends the shivers over our skin 

Anticipation and fear war with each other 

Where are the tanks that are supposed to support us? 

 Sky and earth merge when we peek over the top 

Stitched together by mizzle and mist 

Yards away, across the trampled earth 

The enemy crouch and wait as we do 

 Where are the tanks? The support? 

Whispers and rumours run up and down the line 

Then—suddenly the wait is over 

“Over the top, boys,” the sergeant yells 

 And we go 

Surging out of our earthen burrows 

Running, firing blind, blinking in the fog

 No time to think, only to run and fire 

Ducking bullets whining by our ears 

 Then—it stops I open my mouth and spit mud 

Blood, hot and cold runs through my fingers 

The old guys were right 

There is no pain when it happens 

Just a mixed sensation of disbelief 

And relief… 

 Even if I die right here in the mud 

It’s over: 

 The fear; 

 the wet; 

 the lice;

 the killing. 

 Somewhere my mates are yelling and shots echo 

But around me there is an odd silence 

A separation from the man-made hell 

One hand clutching my gut, the other somehow still wrapped around my rifle 

I let the lark song sing me to sleep. 

 Copyright 2020 Nancy M Bell 

Rasputin’s Murder by Katherine Pym

For something entirely different, a YA fantasy for all ages. 

Well imagined. 

Buy Here

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Imperial Family & others. Little Alexi is sitting on the ground, center.

WWI is a popular topic these days with re: to novels, movies and miniseries. Even as a child, I heard it referred to as The Great War but never realized the cruel impact of it, the men being gassed, and the horrors of battles fought almost entirely in trenches. This war involved almost every nation and killed (military & civilian) more than 18 million. 

No small potato. 

Grigori Rasputin, the Mad Monk

Russia took part in this war with Czar Nicholas on the front, trying to direct his generals and their portion of the battles. This left Grigory Efimovich Rasputin behind to give spiritual advice to the Czarina, much of her family and the local nobles. Vicious propaganda emerged Rasputin had bedded the Czarina and the two of them supposedly ruled Russia in the Czar’s absence.

Enter Felix Yusupov (also spelled Youssupov), a prince and more wealthy than the Imperial family. Felix was the second son who, after the death of his brother in a duel, inherited a vast fortune. They owned lands from Asia to Finland, reaped the benefits of minerals and other resources. He was raised knowing this, and was quite the wild fellow in his youth. 

Felix Yusupov

He enjoyed wearing his mother’s clothes and jewelry, went to nightclubs dressed as a woman. After an episode where his mother’s very expensive pearl necklace broke, pearls shooting all over the darkened nightclub floor, Felix’s father put a stop to all this nonsense. He set his son under close military guard and was taught to act like a man. 

Felix (in sailor suit) and his family

Eventually, due Felix’s father’s many absences from their numerous palaces and homes, this hard-line began to fade. Felix went to university at Oxford and resumed his frivolous life. When he returned to Russia, he married the Czar’s only niece. Even as Felix’s reputation was in tatters and the royal family considered him a flagrant ne’er-do-well but since he was richer than Croesus, he was okay.

Felix was introduced to Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, the popular ‘mad monk’ and spiritualist. Felix’s social circles, especially the women, were enamored with Rasputin. He had numerous affairs with women of all stations. His smoky grey eyes could mesmerize one.  His calm voice brought one peace.  

The Czarina considered him a gift from God who could heal the heir to the throne of his hemophilia. Felix’s aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga, professed her belief in Rasputin, that she observed him healing her dear nephew.

Russia’s nobles learned to hate Rasputin. The imperial couple shunted their counsel aside as Rasputin became more powerful. The Grand Duchess hounded Felix to love Rasputin. They met and—even as Felix proudly accounted for his part in the monk’s murder—something was missing in his account. Historians debate there may have been more to Felix and Rasputin’s relationship than spiritual meetings.  

Under the guise of restoring the reputation and dignity of the imperial family, nobles planned Rasputin’s assassination. They hoped the Czar would return to St Petersburg to rule Russia as he was meant to do during a crucial time as this and let his generals run the war.

December 29/30, 1916: (This is based on several accounts that don’t necessarily match, but there you have it.) Led by Prince Yusupov who instigated the whole affair, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavolovich, the Czar’s first cousin, Vladimir Purishkevitch, a Duma deputy, and two others lured Rasputin to Felix’s opulent home with the promise he would meet Felix’s wife.

Instead, he was taken down a winding staircase to a large cellar where he was fed wine and cake laced with cyanide. Either Rasputin was a strong man or the poison was faulty for the man did not die. He passed out though. Rasputin lay on the floor, now awake, and told Yusupov he would tell something damaging about him to the Czarina. This did not sit well with Felix.

The Courtyard where Rasputin finally breathed his last.

Since the Yusupov and the other men were committed, they shot him twice. One bullet hit him in his midsection, the second in his back.

Rasputin lived. He escaped to the mansion’s courtyard where he was cruelly beaten and shot again in the head. Finally dead, the men dumped Rasputin in a hole in the ice of a canal, knowing his body would be swept downstream.

The Czarina was furious. Felix and Dimitri were exiled. Dimitri found his way to America. Felix and his wife went to the Crimea then onward to Paris. They both survived the Revolution.

As a footnote: One article I read stated that without Rasputin and how much he was hated, how he had controlled the Czarina and her husband, there would have been no room for Vladimir Lenin.

But then again, who knows.

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Many thanks to:

Wikicommons &

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/murder-rasputin-100-years-later-180961572/

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/Felix.html

http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/felix-yusupov/

20th Century Events by Katherine Pym

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20^th century carried a lot of weight. Prior to the 1920’s when my parents were born, the century suffered from a polio epidemic, the San Francisco Earthquake, WW-1 and the Bolshevik movement. The Czar & his family’s execution.

Spanish Flu Hospital

My grandfather had the Spanish flu that killed so many. With the hospital full, they found a pallet and wedged him in a corner, hoping he would survive. He did. 😊

In the 1920’s women threw their corsets in the bin. Shedding inhibitions, men and women drank bathtub gin and danced the charleston. My dad remembered when homemade brews exploded in the basement. 

Silent films morphed into talkies and the world paused at the harsh realities of the 

Great Depression.  Dad lived in the city and experienced long soup lines, issued clothing that my grandmother dyed, trying to disguise the humiliation of government handouts. My mom lived in the farmland and had more food at her disposal. Her aunties fashioned underwear out of printed flour sacks, and very comfortable they were too, or so she said.

Soup Kitchen

My parents witnessed the build-up of Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War, the jitter-bug, Hollywood’s greatest days, the biggest war ever, and the atomic bomb. 

Women painted their legs to simulate silk-stockings because none were available. Dad said his Navy whites were always stained orange after a night of dancing, which did not put the men in good stead with their superior officers.

After the war, Hollywood introduced black noir movies, where the scenes always seemed to take place at night, the streets wet as if it had rained. Women’s hats got 

smaller, their hair shorter. 

Into the 2^nd half of the century, we saw the rise of Communism and as a reaction to that, McCarthyism. Remarkable scientific marvels catapulted the world from a sleepy planet to OMG, don’t press that button.

WW-2

The Korean War marched around the periphery of our cynical thoughts. Eisenhower was president. Elvis Presley had women screaming, “Kiss me. Kiss me.” Hollywood put out incredible grade B movies where couples ‘necked’ the entire film.

Everyone swing-danced; later we did the ‘twist’, causing women’s waistlines to shrink. Dr Salk found the cure for polio and mom dragged us to the school where we were first in line to eat a sugar cube saturated with the vaccine. 

The Cuban Crisis. Fathers came home early from work and informed their families we only had hours to live. The planet went silent with fear as a shaky hand hovered over the Red Button of Doom. From then on, we ducked and covered under our school desk, breathing in dirt from the playground. 

Nuclear Fallout Map

The Beatles & Rolling Stones. A bevy of unfortunate killings: JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcomb X & Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. 

The Berlin Wall.

Race for the moon. In the Apollo Program, panels 32 & 16 on the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) were my dad’s responsibility. He was proud of his work and once asked my grandmother what she thought of his part in it. She asked, “What do you mean?” Dad huffed a breath. “My part in men going to the moon and walking on it.”  My grandmother replied it was a hoax. No one could ever fly to the moon, much less stand on it. The whole thing had been filmed on a movie set. My dad stared at her in disbelief.

The best music came during the 60’s & 70’s, mostly connected with the Vietnam War. 

Two Cold Hippies

Hippies ran amok across the country but they were especially filled with love in San Francisco. Smoking weed, downing mushrooms and peyote buttons. LSD. Dancing naked in the streets with flowers in their hair. 

Going to dances were no longer popular. Stoned to the bone, everyone sat lotus-style on the floor or the grass (Woodstock-the world’s greatest example of sex, drugs, & rock’n roll) and listened to mind-bending music.  

I suppose I should mention Nixon’s Watergate; the assassination attempt on George Wallace. Hollywood advanced into the computer era with the green screens and the amazing special effects of Star Wars. Jimmy Carter’s Iran humiliation. 

Woodstock

The Berlin Wall

President Reagan’s attempted assassination, big hair and large shoulder pads. The movie Superman. Lady Diana’s wedding. 

The Shuttle exploded over Cape Canaveral, shutting down the program for a few years until the reason was documented and nailed in cement. Michael Jackson’s breakthrough that every musician wanted to copy, the Thriller video. 

In the 90’s, our world changed with the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall sledgehammered into chunks of concrete. 

Our planet became smaller with the advent of the computers on the business and personal level. The internet came about with primitive chatrooms and emails. At the airport, a loved one could still accompany you to the gate, and you could carry on board a bottle of wine you wanted to give Auntie at the family reunion.  

Challenger Exploding

People live longer these days. Both in their 90’s when they left, my mom and dad saw so much. What do you suppose they’ll say about the baby boomers in the 21^st century (other than we ruined the world, which we considered our own parents to have done)? 

Hopefully, they’ll say: a lot.   

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Many thanks to Wikicommons Public Domain

A letter to remind us...by Sheila Claydon

Click the cover to read a sample

This weekend it has been time to remember the fallen, those soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought for a safe and peaceful future for the rest of us. For me, born and brought up in England, the union flag says it all. For my American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand friends and colleagues, and those from many other countries, it will be a different flag but the emotions will be the same.

So what does Remembrance Day mean to me? Well my family is a bit out of kilter when it comes to the two World Wars because the nineteen year age difference between my parents means that I had close relatives active in both conflicts. In WWI it was my father's family, in WW2 my mother's. 

One of my father's brothers died at the Battle of the Somme whilst another one never really recovered from months in the trenches up to his ankles in dirty water. It left him with fragile lungs, crippled feet and a permanent aura of sadness. He, like so many others, would never talk of what he'd seen and been through. Another paternal uncle returned unable to father children with all the heartache that entailed.

In WW2 my maternal grandfather, only 20 years older than my father, was torpedoed in the North Sea in the dead of winter. As his ship went down he managed to clamber aboard an open boat but his brother-in-law who was also his best friend, my Great Uncle William, wasn't so lucky. He drowned. Although my grandfather survived for 6 days until a rescue boat arrived, he never fully recovered from either the physical or mental ordeal.

My mother's older sister lost everything she owned when her house was bombed. She and her tiny daughter survived but my aunt's ears were so damaged by the blast that she remained deaf for the rest of her life.

Another aunt lost her young pilot husband shortly after their marriage and as a consequence suffered periods of mental instability for the rest of her life.

My parents were both in the Royal Air Force where my father was responsible for ensuring that bombs were safely loaded into Lancaster bombers while my mother, then only twenty years old, drove the aircrews to the airfields at night. There was only a pinpoint of light in each of the headlights of her truck and no signposts to follow in the pitch dark countryside. She once told me that frightening as it was, the far worst thing was driving to collect the crews when the planes returned always knowing that there would be some who hadn't made it safely back.

Having been lucky enough to grow up and then raise my own family in a time of peace,  I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to live in those uncertain days, waking up each morning unsure whether you and all your loved ones would make it to nightfall. I know I and millions of others owe a great debt to all the unsung soldiers, sailors and airmen of both wars as well as to the brave families they left behind, and this has been doubly brought home to me by a letter that has been long treasured in my father's family. It was written by my long lost Uncle and sent to my widowed paternal grandfather the night before the Battle of the Somme. It is faded and fragile but the words and the determination to be brave and do his duty are are clear. He was twenty years old.


France    June 30th 1916

Dear Dad
In case it is God's wish that I do not return, I am sending this purse and contents as a final gift. All my private things will be sent to you later. If I am killed I die like thousands of Britain's finest men. 

Give heaps of my love to all the family, your loving son Bernard.

We leave our billets at 5.30 pm tonight and at dawn Saturday morning, July 1st 1916, I come to close grips with the Hun in his own trenches. The money is all French. I do not want the family to grieve too much.

Bernard

From the family photos he was the best looking, and from the memories of his many siblings, the best loved. He was certainly one of the bravest. My father, 7 years his junior, hero-worshipped him. None of the family ever forgot him.

Sheila's books can be found on the Books We Love  website and on Amazon

She also has a website and can be found on facebook  and twitter

                                                   

A PILGRIMAGE TO THE WW1 BATTLEFIELDS - MARGARET TANNER

REMEMBRANCE DAY - A TRIBUTE TO THE FALLEN OF WW1

At 11a.m. on the 11^th November, 1918, an Armistice was signed and the guns fell silent. The Great War had ended but the repercussions would be felt for years.

If you get the chance, please buy a red poppy and wear it proudly, in memory of the fallen.

Australia was a small country in 1914, with a population of less than 4 million, yet we sent over 300,000 men to the front, Gallipoli in Turkey, Egypt, France and Belgium.  More than 60,000 of our soldiers lie on Gallipoli or in the beautiful cemeteries of France and Belgium, 12,000 miles from home.

Our pilgrimage commenced in Amiens where we were met by our guide who runs tours of the French and Belgium battlefields. He has a wealth of knowledge regarding the battlefields. Using war time maps, he was able to point to within a hundred yards, where my grandfather’s cousin was seriously wounded near the village of Hermes in 1917. Chills ran down my spine, I felt as if a hand was gripping me from the grave. Unfortunately, this relative died of his wounds, leaving a wife and two small children behind.  He is buried in the war cemetery at Rouen, and we were elated but sad when we found his grave.

We visited large cemeteries where hundreds of white headstones stood amongst green lawns with pretty flowers nodding their heads between the graves.

At Thiepval we saw a monument with thousands of names engraved on it, for English soldiers who fell in the area but have no known grave. One of the most memorable monument wasn’t very big.  It was at Fromelles, a bronze statue of an Aussie soldier carrying his wounded mate. 

The battle for Fromelles was fought on the 19^th and 20^th July 1916, Australia had 5,500 casualties the British 1,500.  For over 90 years no-one knew the fate of nearly 300 of these soldiers, but there had been rumours for many years of mass graves in the area, and it was only after a tenacious campaign waged for years by an Australian school teacher that the authorities finally acted, and four mass graves were discovered about three years after our visit. 250 soldiers have now been laid to rest in separate graves in a new Commonwealth war cemetery.  Of the 250 bodies, nearly half have so far been identified by name using DNA volunteered by relatives, but the authorities are still hoping that more soldiers will eventually be identified.

At Beaumont-Hamel is the Newfoundland Memorial, a giant bronze caribou monument, the caribou being the 1^st Newfoundland Regiment’s emblem. The losses here were horrific. During one of the most costly days of the 1916 campaign, the 1^st Newfoundland regiment lost three-quarters of its soldiers in less than half an hour.

On the 28^th May, 1918, the 1^st American Division attacked Cantigny and took the village against overwhelming odds.

The men of the various American regiments who fell in the battles of 1917-18, are buried in a large American Cemetery at Bony (Aisne) on the Somme.

There is a lovely chapel there and staff at the visitor centre were very nice and showed us around. They were surprised at our interest, because they said that sadly not many Americans visited there. Those who came to France always went to the Normandy beaches. Hopefully, with the Centenary of the 1^st World War, this will be rectified and Americans in greater numbers will now come to pay homage to their heroes who fell on the Western Front.

In the Belgium city of Ypres is a soaring stone archway at an entrance to the town. The Menin Gate memorial to the Missing has etched into its walls the names of 50,000 thousand British and other Commonwealth soldiers who served in the region but have no known graves. Even after all these years, they still play the last post every evening as a mark of respect for the fallen.

The largest Commonwealth War cemetery is Tyne Cot with over 12,000 graves in it. More than half the headstones have no name. They bear the inscription “Known Only To God.

We visited large war cemeteries here and beautiful and sad as they were, the most touching was a small cemetery near Passchendale with only a handful of white headstones. Night was falling as we passed through this cemetery, and as we stopped to read the inscription on an eighteen year old soldier’s grave, we whispered that someone from home had come to visit him. When we turned and walked away through the misty rain, all we could leave behind for him was our tears and a red poppy.

Find Margaret Tanner's WWI Centenary Edition and her other titles here: http://www.bookswelove.net/tanner.php