A Name on a Wall

-

It's been a quiet day today, and probably rightly so. I rose later than usual, and after tea and toast for breakfast, turned on the coverage of the Remembrance Day Parade, and just thought about stuff. After the silence, and shopping in the village, I noted that there was a handful of freshly-laid wreaths at the small Bethesda War Memorial; rather fewer now than in years past, as the number of celebrants inevitably dwindles with time. But it goes on. And this afternoon, having watched Spielberg's 'The War Horse' for the first time ever, and having been reminded of the often pointless savagery of the First World War and of the powerlessness of the tiny cogs that enabled the war machine on its blind progress,  I recalled the name and fate of a great-uncle of mine.

Born in 1893 in Staffordshire to Walter & Annie Rudge, he's listed on our family tree as simply having been killed in France in 1914. No other details. So I decided to try and find him online, as it seemed an appropriate thing to do, given the day. I figured that the obvious place to look would be The Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, so I gave it a go, without, frankly, much hope of locating him. I'd no regiment, service number or location, and the name Tom Rudge can't exactly have been that uncommon back then.

He's listed on the family tree as Tom and not Thomas, so I used that in the search, along with what I assumed to be his obvious regiment, Staffordshire. The only record that came out, was indeed for a Tom Rudge, but of the Coldstream Guards. The age and dates of birth and death were spot on, but it was only when I came to his father's name and Tom's place of birth, I realised I'd found him, first try: Walter B. Rudge of Stafford. His mother's name wasn't given, I assume because she pre-deceased him in 1903. 

Tom's full record then is: Tom Rudge, Private, First Battalion, Coldstream Guards, service number 11313, killed in action on the 22nd of December, 1914, aged just 21. Whereabouts unknown, he is remembered at Le Touret Memorial, Pas De Calais, France. A name on a wall amongst those of 13,481 other young men with no known grave who had barely made it weeks into the War. I will visit and pay my respects one day...

Comments

  1. Anonymous13 November 2023 at 15:47

    I found my Grandfather James Stoner Petty Officer (who's ditty box looks down on me in my bedroom) but married to a woman that predated my grandmother! No sign of the three sons that she lost in WW1!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sideways13 November 2023 at 17:45

      Keep looking, mate: the information's out there...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more