Sunday 30 March 2014

Budleigh and Bushey: an unexpected centenary link








Sir Hubert von Herkomer: a self-portrait from around 1880

I’ve never been to Bushey, in Hertfordshire. Unlike the peaceful coastal town of Budleigh Salterton it seems to be very much a domitory place for commuters to London, with a population some five times bigger than ours.

But in the late 19th century it was “a sleepy, picturesque place” as one of its most famous former residents recalled. “It had no water laid on, and there was no sanitation except of the most primitive kind. The drinking-water was brought to the houses in buckets, for which the old people, who carried it round, charged a halfpenny a bucket. The one and only well from which they could obtain this drinking-water was situated quite near the churchyard, a rather doubtful proximity, according to our modern ideas. There was of course the usual well attached to each house for collecting rain-water, which I remember was considerably stocked with live matter.”

The famous former resident was the Victorian painter Sir Hubert von Herkomer, who chose to move to Bushey with his family in 1873. The only connection between him and Budleigh Salterton is that he died here in our town, 100 years ago today. Like another famous Victorian, the author Sir Henry Rider Haggard, he came to Budleigh for its peaceful atmosphere and healthy climate. Too late. His relatively short life came to an end when he was only 65.   He died in a house on the town's Marine Parade, known at the time as Matford. 

But what a full life!  Not just a painter but a pioneering film-maker, composer, author and enthusiast for modern technology. He sponsored an automobile race in Bavaria, the Herkmerkonkurrenz from 1905 to 1907, and experimented with new forms of stage lighting.  A prominent member of the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, he was admired by Vincent Van Gogh, ranked with artists like Sir John  Millais and  was a friend of the art critic John Ruskin.

It was Ruskin who recommended him as Slade Professor of Art at Oxford University, a post that he held from 1885 to 1894. The Herkomer Art School, which he founded in Bushey in 1883 taught students from countries as far flung as Sweden, South Africa, America, and Australia. He was honoured by King Ludwig of Bavaria and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and knighted by King Edward VII in 1907. 

I enjoyed discovering the two volumes of his highly readable memoirs: you can find them online at https://archive.org/details/herkomers01herkuoft

Portrait of Lord Tennyson Chalk drawing 1879
 
In these volumes you can see portraits by Herkomer of famous people of the time such as the poet Lord Tennyson.  These commissions brought him considerable wealth. 


A Spinning Party in the Bavarian Alps 
Drawn facsimile on the block for the Illustrated London News 1878 

You’ll also find examples of his sympathetic depiction of the sufferings of the poor,  inspired by the harsh conditions that he experienced during his own childhood. 


"There stood her mother, amid the group of children, hanging over the washing tub." by Hubert von Herkomer, RA. This plate, the first in the illustrated serialisation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the Durbervilles, appeared in the 4 July 1891 issue of the London Graphic. Scanned image and text by  Philip V. Allingham.  

His illustrations of the impoverished workers of the countryside were used in the Wessex novels of Thomas Hardy, as seen above. 

Herkomer reveals in his memoirs a deep affection for Britain and its artists, although he notes with disapproval “how deep-seated are the puritanical tendencies of the English race.” However his passionate love of the countryside is unequivocal. Here, for example he goes into rhapsodies about the time that he spent in Somerset.                 

“What a country for the artist!” he exclaims. “If ever decay and neglect  enhanced nature for the  painter's art, there it is in all its artistry. The rich red soil, the undulating country, the apple-trees tumbling about in their eccentric untouched shapes (untouched by man, except to gather the fruit for cider   making), the dilapidated farmsteads; all a treasure ground for painter and   poet. In spring, the first budding of leafage, like jewels set in the deep purple  tonality given by the massing of tree branches not yet in leaf; the offset of the strong green masses of ivy growths that have taken overwhelming  possession of the stems to which they are attached, give a witchery to this corner of England unsurpassed, I should say, in any part of the world.”

 Maybe he should have settled in East Devon.
 
He would have made a valuable Patron of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, detesting as he did the rash of new buildings spreading across the countryside. “The myriads of small dwellings that are springing up on every available bit of land throughout this country, built by small and large builders, by retired tradesmen, even by frugal workmen (they do exist) who have saved a little money, poison this fair England of ours like a black plague. The origin of this satanic scourge was made clear to me when a builder showed a friend of mine a new street that he had perpetrated, and exclaimed: ‘There! that is what I call a beautiful sight, all the houses alike, and all let!’”

Equal in the intensity of Herkomer’s love of the English countryside was his attachment to Bavaria, where he was born. Later in life he discovered the beauty of his native landscape, which became a source of inspiration for much of his work. His parents had emigrated to the USA in 1851 when Hubert was only three years old, settling briefly in Cleveland, Ohio, before moving to Southampton, in England.  Art studies in London followed and in 1869 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy.




His 1875 oil painting, ‘The Last Muster’  established his position as an artist of high distinction at the Academy.  It was painted after Herkomer had attended a service at the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, the home for veteran soldiers known as the ‘Chelsea Pensioners’.  “The idea was to make every man tell some different story, to be told by his face, or by the selection of attitude,” Herkomer wrote. The central figure has slumped forward, his stick slipping from his grasp. The old soldier beside him reaches for his pulse to discover that his neighbour has indeed answered the call for ‘the last muster.’





Part of the front elevation of Lululaund, Bushey 

Herkomer’s love of Bavarian art and craft was demonstrated in Lululaund, the substantial house built between 1886 and1894 in the centre of Bushey and named after his second wife who had died shortly after their marriage.  Herkomer engaged the eminent American architect H. H. Richardson for the project, and  the house, described as ‘an Arts and Crafts fairlytale home’, may be considered his only European work.



The drawing-room at Lululaund  

Much of the construction of Lululaund and the detailed design, was the work of Herkomer himself. The stone was finished in his workshops, and the interiors fitted out with materials worked by his family. 

For Herkomer, the question of his rights as a British subject or as a German citizen was of less relevance than his life as an artist. “What mattered to me these technicalities of nationality?” he wrote in 1910. “I am”, he explained, “a British subject wherever the British flag flies, and a German subject wherever the German colours are hoisted. My case is curious, but by no means without precedent” 

But xenophobia was on the rise in the 19th century. Herkomer’s father had evidently experienced it after settling in England, where he found that there was “but little less prejudice against foreigners than in America.”

Hubert himself suffered from it during his time in Southampton. “Even I, as a boy, was under this bane of prejudice,” he recalled in his memoirs. “I well remember a horse-dealer and jobmaster - whose stables were at the end of the street - who never failed when he met me to call me such names as ‘Dutchman’, ‘Foreigner’, ‘Roman Catholic’, ‘Brigand’, ‘Vagabond’, ‘Half-caste,’ etc.”

The early 20th century saw a worsening of such prejudices.  Ironically, in view of the success of Herkomer’s ‘Last Muster’ as a work appealing to the public taste for patriotic sentiment, his star declined because of this.  It’s been said that despite being a prominent member of London art societies, as well as being on familiar terms with the royal family, he was never totally accepted by the British establishment, and was ultimately a victim of the deteriorating relationship between Great Britain and Germany.



Many blame the deterioration on the influence of the press. One journalist in particular led the way in portraying Germany as a threat to Britain. As early as 1894 Alfred Harmsworth, proprietor of the Daily Mail, had commissioned author William Le Queux to write The Great War in England, which featured Germany, France and Russia combining forces to crush Britain.   "This is the book that frightened the life out of many British people, proclaiming a German threat a decade ahead of the First World War," writes historian Max Hastings.

Twelve years later, with Harmsworth’s support,  the exercise was repeated,  resulting in the publication of the best selling The Invasion of 1910. The book originally appeared in serial form in the Daily Mail in 1906. Well before its appearance in the newspaper the public had been fed a diet of thrillers in the same vein. 

Some, like George Tomkyns Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking (1871) or H.G. Wells’ The War in the Air (1907) depicted a country invaded by a well organised enemy; others, like Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands (1903) portrayed evil German spies involved in sinister plans to destroy Britain. 

“Next to the Kaiser, Lord Northcliffe has done more than any living man to bring about the war,” wrote A.G. Gardiner, editor of The Star newspaper.

By contrast, there were many like Herkomer, who loved Britain and Germany with an equal passion or had Anglo-German families.

I can’t help thinking that their anguish, as they saw the two countries drifting towards the 1914-18 world conflict, must have almost matched that of those whose loved ones died in it. 

The creator of ‘The Last Muster’ seems in any case to have had had an almost prophetic view of how the appalling Great War would develop, judging by the description in his memoirs of the Crimean campaign: “a bitter and almost useless struggle, in a climate that vied with shot and shell to decimate the ‘imperfectly organized and badly equipped’ allied armies at Alma, Inkerman, and Balaklava.”


All that remains of Lululaund    Photo credit: Bazj (2009)

Perhaps it was better that this fine artist, of whom I knew nothing before writing this piece, did not live to witness the outbreak of hostilities. Had he in fact lived until the Second World War he would have been heartbroken to see what happened to his dream house of Lululaund.  The house, which stood on Bushey's Melbourne Road, fell into disrepair in the 1920s, was transferred to the ownership of Bushey Urban District Council and finally was demolished in 1939. It’s widely reported that anti-German feeling may have played a part in an ignorant Council’s action.  All that survives is the Grade II* listed base of the entrance porch and a section of flanking wall, part of the entrance to the former British Legion Hall in Bushey. The Hall is being redeveloped as housing. There’s a certain irony there, I feel.

However I’m pleased to see that Bushey has been twinned with the German town of Landsberg am Lech in Bavaria, where there is a Herkomer Museum.  The Hertfordshire town now has a Herkomer Road, and Bushey Museum itself has a Herkomer Room.  It’s a volunteer-run museum, and admission is free. Just like Fairlynch.

A talk about Herkomer was given by Museum volunteer Hugh Lewis on 18 March, serving as a prelude to a series of exhibitions during 2014-15. 
 
 Ten years ago, the Museum acquired a 1902 photograph album belonging to Herkomer. Because of its size and condition it has not until now been put on display. As part of the Museum's commemoration of Herkomer's centenary, the album, together with enlargements of the photos, is on display in the Jubilee Room.

The album records a visit by Herkomer, his wife Margaret and their son Lawrence to Waal in Bavaria where the artist was born. The occasion was the erection of a memorial to the fallen in the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian war, which he had designed. Herkomer was welcomed as a civic celebrity, with town band, speeches, songs and bouquets. The family then went on to nearby Landsberg, where, in honour of his mother, Herkomer had built a tower which they used as a summer home. He included some watercolours of the town in his album.

The Herkomer 1902 Photo Album Exhibition runs until 29 June 2014. Then from April 26 to September 7, an exhibition in the Art Gallery will be of drawings by Herkomer and students of the Herkomer Art School.  This will be followed, in the Council Chamber from June 29 to January 11, 2015, by the Museum’s main Herkomer Centenary Exhibition, consisting of Herkomer paintings, memorabilia and so on.  Finally, from September 13 to January 11, 2015, the Art Gallery and the Herkomer Room together will display items from Lululaund.

For more information about Bushey Museum click on http://www.busheymuseum.org

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 



Wednesday 26 March 2014

Boost for Budleigh weekenders



  
A barely credible story: Find out about Cecil’s amazing World War One adventures at our Museum’s ‘Great War at Fairlynch’  exhibition

Weekend visitors to Budleigh Salterton will have one more attraction to see when the town’s museum opens its doors on Saturdays for the first time in many years. 

Fairlynch Museum and Arts Centre opens for the 2014 season on Sunday 6 April. “Our team of volunteers have been hard at work preparing this year’s exhibitions,” said Museum Chairman Roger Sherriff.

“The main display entitled ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ focuses on life in the Lower Otter Valley between 1914 and 1918, and has been supported by an award from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We also have exhibitions of lace, costumes, toys and local history, as well as a lovely garden.”

Some of the dresses in the Museum have been donated to Fairlynch from the costume collection of the late Susan Ward, founder of Budleigh’s Literary Festival. They will be on display for the first time, next to an exhibition on Fashion in the 1920s. 

A major recent venture for Fairlynch has been the refurbishment of the Archaeology and Geology areas, now known as the Priscilla Carter Room as a tribute to one of the Museum’s co-founders.

“We welcomed over 7,000 visitors in 2013,” said Roger. “That was a big increase on previous years. Free admission was one factor, but word is spreading about the high standard of our exhibitions.”

Fairlynch welcomes offers from people interested in becoming stewards or volunteering in general. For more information please phone 01395 446407.  The Museum is open every day from 2.00 - 4.30 pm, except for Mondays. 

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 




Sunday 23 March 2014

Spreading the word about the Great War at Fairlynch





New 2014 leaflets have just been published by Budleigh Salterton’s Museum.  Promoting the Museum’s World War One exhibition together with other displays of costumes, lace, local history, archaeology and geology, the leaflets are being distributed over a wide area of East Devon including Exmouth, Exeter and Sidmouth.

Special attention has been paid to distribution at outlets in Newton Poppleford, Colaton Raleigh, Otterton and East Budleigh as these villages have featured in research into how the Great War affected life in the Lower Otter Valley.    


 



















The new leaflet is now online, along with Fairlynch Museum’s Spring 2014 newsletter.

Click on http://www.devonmuseums.net/includes/documents/2014%20leaflet%20+%20Spring%202014%20newsletter.pdf


Visit ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews include: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!!”

Saturday 22 March 2014

Shades of the Great War are all around us (3): Major Reginald Elliott (1874-1914)










Exmouth War Memorial, where Reginald Elliott's name is listed

There was clearly a strong military tradition in the Elliott family. Of Reginald's two brothers, Thomas Gosselin, four years older than him, had joined the South Cork Light Infantry Militia. Another brother, Charles Allen Elliott (1871-1919), seen below, would end a distinguished career in the Royal Engineers with the rank of Brigadier-General and be awarded the CMG and DSO. 

 





















For some time, according to his death notice in the London Gazette,  Charles Allen Elliott had lived with his father at Alexandra Terrace in Exmouth.  However he spent much of his military career in the East, serving as a Field Engineer in the Tibet Expedition of 1903-4. This was when British Indian forces under the command of Brigadier-General James Macdonald, invaded the country, supposedly to counter Russian ambitions in the area.  Both Gurkha and Sikh soldiers were involved in the expedition, capturing the massive fortress of Gyantse and finally marching on Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.  A total of 107 officers received the Tibet Medal with clasp for Gyantse, including the young Captain Charles Elliott.
















The Conquest of Tibet: British officers discuss terms with Tibetans
Illustration from the Petit Journal newspaper of 14 February 1904

But it was an unhappy episode in British military history, with poorly armed Tibetan troops being mown down by superior firepower. The encounter between the two sides, on 31 March 1904, became known as the massacre of Chumik Shenko. It left between 600 and 700 Tibetans dead and 168 wounded. "I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the general’s order was to make as big a bag as possible," wrote a fellow-officer, Lieutenant Arthur Hadow, commander of the Maxim guns detachment. "I hope I shall never again have to shoot down men walking away."

A dozen years later, as Lieutenant-Colonel Hadow, Commanding Officer of the Newfoundland Regiment, he would witness a similar massacre. On 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Regiment was wiped out by enemy fire. Of its 780 men who went forward only about 110 survived unscathed - a casualty rate of approximately 90 percent.

Brigadier-General Elliott’s widow seems to have remained in India after her husband’s death in 1919. Their only child, Sidney Mary Elliott, married another army officer, Henry Gordon Strange Lumsden (d. 1969), of the Royal Scots.  Her husband, known as Harry, was the son of Henry Richmond William Lumsden, a Colonel in the Bengal Staff Corps.

The couple’s engagement was announced in The Times of 14 July 1932, and the wedding took place at Quetta.  Their son, David Lumsden, born the following year, was a well-known figure in Scottish Jacobite circles; described variously as a castle restorer, businessman and herald, he was the last of the family to hold the title of Baron of Cushnie. He died on 30 August 2008.

 














Crossed kukris: a feature of Gurkha regimental badges

Reginald Elliott followed his brothers into the military, joining a Gurkha regiment. Almost all his career was spent in India - 21 years in total.

Gurkha soldiers from the Kingdom of Nepal had fought for the British since the early 19th century. During the Indian Mutiny of 1857, Gurkhas fought on the British side, and became part of the British Indian Army on its formation.






















Gurkha soldiers in 1896

Reginald’s career with the regiment coincided with an increase in numbers when fresh battalions were raised for the British Indian Army. Between 1901 and 1906, the Gurkha regiments were renumbered from the 1st to the 10th and re-designated as the Gurkha Rifles, a rifle regiment of two regular battalions.The Brigade of Gurkhas, as the regiments came to be collectively known, was expanded to twenty battalions within the ten regiments.

The 7th Gurkha Rifles came into being in 1907, after a complicated process of reorganisation. The Regiment had the distinction of being one of only two out of the ten Gurkha regiments to recruit its soldiers from the towns and villages which lie along the rugged foothills of the Himalayas east of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Gurkha officers and soldiers have come predominantly from the Rai and Limbu clans but the roll records many names from the smaller Sunwar, Tamang and eastern Gurung clans as well as men from the Sherpa families of mountaineering fame.

By this time, Reginald was a father, his son Robert Allen Elliott having been born the previous year in 1906. It was in the 7th Gurkha Rifles Regiment that Captain Elliott’s promotion to Major was announced by the London Gazette with effect from 28 January 1911.  He may then have served in the Middle East: the 1st Battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles was posted around this time to Quetta and Robat, on the Persian frontier.

 















 A contemporary painting depicting—rather sensationally—the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie

Image credit:  www.smithsonianmag.com

The assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 is famous as the event which precipitated the outbreak of the Great War. It was that fateful year that Reginald and May had chosen to return to England on 12 months’ leave from India.

Following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the first members of the British Expeditionary Force landed in France.  The Battle of the Marne (5-12 September) resulted in a victory for French and British forces, halting the German advance on Paris and forcing the enemy to retreat north-east.  The Allies’ pursuit ended at the indecisive First Battle of the Aisne (13-28 September). A further stalemate occurred in what became known as the Race to the Sea, a series of reciprocal attacks between 17 September and 19 October.  Both sides were beginning to dig in to defensive positions. The weather, meanwhile, had turned unusually wet, making conditions intolerably difficult.

 

































'India’s fighting men in action  A Gurkha charge which the Germans could not face' is the caption for this illustration in The Graphic of 5 December 1914.  It's described as drawn by J.Dodworth from the description by an Officer of the 2nd Gurkhas

The importance of securing the English Channel ports of Calais and Boulogne led to the first battle of Ypres in Western Belgium, which took place between 19 October and 22 November.  Although the result was a victory for the allied forces of France, Belgium and Britain, losses on both sides were heavy.
  
The fighting spirit of the Gurkhas was undiminished. There’s clearly a propaganda element in this 1914 depiction by The Graphic magazine However the words of one of their officers are worth quoting. “The men were eager to get to close quarters. They were hard to restrain”, wrote Sabidar Khurk Sing Rana, hinting at the way in which his men were looking forward to using their kukris.

“We charged at nine o’clock in the morning and the enemy came out of their trenches to meet us.  But we never reached them. We came to about twenty yards of them when they turned and ran. Many died. They were shot in the back. We were disappointed.” 

On the other hand the Germans were quick to use the presence of Gurkhas to their advantage.  “Difficulty in ascertaining which trenches were occupied by enemy as enemy called out 'We are Gurkhas' & it was impossible to see in the dark,” noted a Bedford Regiment diarist for 30-31 October. 

In many areas the enemy was fighting hard.  At the end of October reinforcements were ordered to reinforce Indian troops east of the village of Festubert, eight kilometres east of Bethune. Reginald was attached to the 8th Gurkhas whose trenches had been partly occupied by the enemy after being driven out.

Indian troops in general were prominent in the action. Darwan Singh Negi was among the earliest Indian recipients of the Victoria Cross.  A Naik - equivalent of a Corporal - in the 1st Battalion, 39th Garhwal Rifles, he was noted “for conspicuous bravery” as described by the London Gazette of 4 December, 1914. The citation read: “For great gallantry on the night of the 23rd-24th November, near Festubert, France, when the regiment was engaged in retaking and clearing the enemy out of our trenches, and, although wounded in two places in the head, and also in the arm, being one of the first to push round each successive traverse, in the face of severe fire from bombs and rifles at the closest range.”


  















Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

It was during the engagement known as the Defence of Festubert, on 23 November, that Reginald lost his life. He is buried in the Town Cemetery at Bethune, in the Pas de Calais area of France. The Cemetery, shown above, contains 3,004 Commonwealth burials of the First World War,11 being unidentified. 

 
















Photo credit: Irish War Memorials website
 
Reginald Elliott is also remembered in Ireland.  His full name is given on the Great War Memorial in Leighlinbridge Memorial Garden in Co. Carlow.  Inside the memorial structure are stone panels on which the names of the fallen are carved.


 




















Photo credit: De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour
 
Another casualty on the same day was Lieutenant Duncan Macpherson, seen above. A fellow-officer in the same regiment as Reginald, he had been attached to the 8th Gurkha Rifles and was noted as killed in action “when commanding the advanced company in a successful counter-attack for the recovery of trenches which had been lost.” Aged 25 he was the only child of  Brigadier-General William Macpherson of the Army Medical Service Staff, an Advisor attached to the Indian Corps. His father had apparently spoken with him only a few hours previously. The death was described by a friend as the greatest sorrow of William Macpherson's life. “He would not discuss the issue ever afterwards.”

 



















This photograph of the ruined battlefield near Festubert was taken in the spring of 1919. The Canadians fought at Festubert in May 1915, but no official photographers accompanied them to the front. The ground in the photo still shows the scars from the heavy fighting, four years after the battle.
Photo credit: Canadian War Museum

 

The Defence of Festubert, not to be confused with the 1915 action,  is notable for being one of the first actions in the war in which an attack was made against a prepared defensive position, thus foreshadowing the years of trench warfare which were to come. 

Reginald’s father Nicholas Gosselin Elliott would die two years later. The news of his son’s death must have come as a bitter blow.  As for Reginald’s wife, May, she was left a widow at the age of 35 with their eight-year-old son Robert to bring up on her own.  In 1915 she became a Matron at Lambrook Prep School, then an all boys’ boarding school in the Berkshire countryside.  She remained in this post for eight years.

By the time she moved to our house in Budleigh Salterton, in 1932, Robert - known to the family as Bob -  was a young man.  He had followed in his father’s footsteps, first by going to school at Cheltenham College, but as a boarder, before embarking on an army career. After training at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,  he served with the Royal Artillery.   In 1932 he was in Jullundur in the NW Indian state of Punjab, followed by a spell in Lahore - in modern-day Pakistan -  until 1936.

In that year he strengthened the family’s Devon connections by marrying Beryl Mary Tanqueray (1910-1995) in St Giles’ Church, Sidbury. His bride's great-grandfather Charles Tanqueray (1810-1868) had founded the gin company. 


















East Budleigh's All Saints' Church

 Both her parents were associated with East Budleigh. Her father Charles Henry Drought Tanqueray (1875-1928) was born in the village and had married Stella Mary Green (1877-1963), daughter of the vicar of All Saints' Church, the Rev William Frederick Green.  
  
 





















Bob went on to have a distinguished military career, reaching the rank of Brigadier. He died in 1962.  As for Beryl, she started the Otterton wolf cub and scout pack, and continued to own a flat in Budleigh Salterton until the 1990s.  She is buried in East Budleigh churchyard, in the grave that you see here, alongside her parents and her brother Henry Aubrey Tanqueray 

So there's a strong link to the Lower Otter Valley after all!

 
















May Elliott never remarried. On 24 May 1945 she sold the lease on our house and moved. Where, I wonder. Possibly not far, for the announcement of her death on 9 May 1969 in the London Gazette lists her as a widow, living at Lyncroft, the house shown above at 3 Knowle Village, just a few minutes' walk from where we live.

I see that the house is now called Karacroft and is on the market with estate agents Palmers, Whitton and Laing http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/31981416

It’s been a longish and rather roundabout route from Southern Ireland to this corner of Devon, via battlefields from Tibet and the Indian sub-continent to Northern France. My research has taken up more time than I’d anticipated. Somehow this little tribute seems only right when I think of the footsteps and the voices of those people from the past who lived within our walls, and who suffered during those terrible times of war, in a way that we and our own children never will - we hope.  

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!