History Society

September 18th History Society Audlem and World War I

'A very good evening' said a number of the large audience after hearing and seeing an absorbing presentation about 1914 in the Scout and Guide Hall on September 18th.

Every table in the Hall carried a wide variety of documents, posters, letters and maps, together with objects including a weighty shell cylinder.

Celia Bloor has painstakingly collected and researched this visible evidence from Audlem and district for a year or more, and she gratefully acknowledged the many items lent to her for this display.

Geoff Farr, a pilot himself – who will be our speaker in November – introduced the main presentations by describing how fumes from the engine lubricating oil in these very basic WW1 aeroplanes affected the pilots. It was Castor oil, making their body systems all too uncomfortably 'regular', as Derek McElvey observed!

Celia Bloor gave a vivid account of the enlisting process of local men, and where the names were – or not – recorded on memorials. She enlivened this overview by telling us how the Audlem vicar's son went to war in the very early weeks, like many from that class, and balanced that with stories of 'other ranks', both those who died in the killing fields of the Western front, and those who, like Roy Pudney, survived and would be seen cycling around the village with his wooden leg ( I have a similar boyhood memory of our gammy legged vicar in Hampton, Middlesex ).

Maureen Morgan then spoke, explaining how she went about her research, which took her to the Chester Record Office, local libraries, and indeed to Glasgow to see a surviving WW1 relative – this by way of encouraging members of the audience to take up researching their own forbears. We were especially gripped by what she discovered about her own grandfather Thomas Bennet, and how and why he was awarded the Military Medal.

There is more to come! If anyone knows what happened to the Roll of Honour kept at the Grammar School before its closure, please come forward. Also if anyone has information about the Belgian refugees who came to the area because of the German invasion – several were hosted at Acton- please be in touch.

For those who missed this most enlightening evening, many of the exhibits will be on display in St. James' Church around Remembrance Sunday, November 6th to 11th – further details next month.

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