From the Front

FROM THE FRONT Issue 4 A World Remembers - a special extended edition for Winter 2010 The Newsletter of the Dover War Memorial Project DAME VERA LYNN, DBE, LL.D, M.Mus PATRON OF THE DOVER WAR MEMORIAL PROJECT We are absolutely delighted that on 16th November 2010 Dame Vera Lynn most kindly became Patron of The Dover War Memorial Project. Known as “The Forces Sweetheart” for her uplifting and morale-boosting songs, concerts, and broadcasts during the Second World War, Dame Vera has enjoyed a long and successful career. She began at the age of seven, in 1924 – the year our Town Memorial in Dover was unveiled – and in 2009 she became the oldest living artist to have an album in the top twenty. Dame Vera has toured the world during her career, during the war years often under personal risk and discomfort. Internationally renowned, she is a Freeman of London, Winnipeg, Nashville, Melbourne, and Cornerbrook, Newfoundland. She gained a Spirit of the Century award in 2000 Forever associated with Dover through her legendary song “(There’ll be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover”, Dame Vera stated that during the war her songs reminded the troops of home, and the personal and precious things they were fighting for. By graciously becoming our Patron, Dame Vera Lynn has continued her work, bringing a unique part of their home back to our Fallen Dovorians, who never saw the White Cliffs again. Dame Vera Lynn: photo Ian Lillford The White Cliffs of Dover THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR The Unknown Warrior is borne along the Admiralty Pier: courtesy Dover Museum On 10th November 1920, Dovorians filled the Forgotten” projects, and to welcome Medway streets, thronged the sea-front, crowded onto the Archives, “Firepower” the Royal Artillery Prince of Wales Pier, and lined the cliff-tops as the Museum, and Chelsea Football Club. Unknown Warrior was brought home through Dover en route to his final resting place at The Unknown Warrior’s last journey was by rail Westminster Abbey. from Dover to Victoria, London, where he lay overnight at platform 8, and then by gun-carriage But who was that soldier? We will never know. He to Westminster Abbey. To commemorate this was chosen at midnight in a chapel at St. Pol, route, young people from Kent and London France, from identical coffins laid out there. Each studied local casualties of coffin contained the body of an unidentifiable the Great War. All bar one serviceman, exhumed from major battlefields casualty now lie in graves along the Western Front. Unknown and unknown. unknowable, the Warrior stands for everyone who Fell, a focus for grief and a thank you for sacrifice. Tommy Eaves was a much-loved master at St The Dover War Memorial Project Martin’s Primary School, was very pleased to be awarded a Dover. An old pupil of the Heritage Lottery Fund Grant to Tommy Eaves at Scout Camp County School, now the mark the 90th Anniversary of the 1910: courtesy St Martin’s Primary School Boys’ Grammar, he also Unknown Warrior’s homecoming. It was superb to founded the 3rd Dover be working again with The City of Westminster Scout troop. They meet in Dover in Eaves Hall, Archives and Westminster Abbey, following on Eaves Road, both of which were named in his from the successful Walter Tull and “Not honour. Lieutenant and Acting Captain Tommy Eaves, of the Queen’s Royal Dickie’s brother Arthur, a former territorial, was West Surrey regiment was one of the first cavalrymen sent overseas. He had killed by a shell in 1916. been killed in November 1914. Their mother brought up Dickie’s son, named Richard Arthur in Then died too Cecil Bromley, memory of his father and uncle. once a solicitor’s clerk. Inspired by early experiments at Dover and by the record- making cross channel flights of Louis Blériot, Charles Stewart Rolls, and Harriet Cecil Bromley: courtesy Quimby, Cecil became a Royal Aero Club Trust mechanic and then a Pilot Sergeant in the Royal Flying Corps. From a family of bargemen, Monty Daniel of Gillingham was a shipwright. He was killed in October 1916, just six days after arriving at the Front. Though Monty had died wearing his territorial Sergeant’s stripes, his widow received only a Private’s pension. Marine James Brill’s wife was just 16, and expecting their first child, when he died from wounds in 1915, after serving at the Dardanelles. For the next 60 years until she herself died, James’ widow, Florence, carried in her purse the label returned with James’ effects. Chelsea Artist Jonathan Boast with some of the Scouts and Brownies footballer Bob designing the background of the stained-glass window “Pom Pom” Whiting was In learning more about the casualties and the so nicknamed significance of Remembrance, young people took by fans part in a variety of activities. Tommy Eaves’ th because the Scouts, with 8 Dover Brownies, worked with speed of his professional artist Jonathan Boast to produce a kicking design for a stained-glass window to th reminded them commemorate the 90 Anniversary. Two panes of the quick- depict the Unknown Warrior; the other six are firing naval dedicated to each serviceman. Their stories shine gun. He through an image of a soldier watching from the enlisted in the White Cliffs as HMS Verdun, bearing the Football Unknown Warrior’s coffin, steams in to dock at Battalion, and the Admiralty Pier, Dover. was killed in Detail from stained-glass window panel for 1917, leaving The window and the accompanying six-panel “Pom Pom” Whiting, featuring also another exhibition were on display at Westminster Abbey famed footballer casualty, Walter Tull, his wife with whose family came from Dover their new baby. throughout Remembrance and are now on tour to museums and galleries, including Dover. Check Dickie Seaby, the second son from a family of “Latest News” on the DWMP website for the Irish street traders, also lost his life in 1917. current location. get fit army-style (complete with disciplinarian Sergeant Major!). There was even the well-known Christmas truce of 1914, with every goal in the football match declared “in!” by pupil-players and their audience of referees! Visits to Westminster were packed days. Guided by a costumed interpreter, young people learnt The exhibition and window in the gallery at Dover library: photo about war-time poets and visited their and other Joyce and Brian Banks. St Martin’s School work is also on display memorials in the Abbey. They saw the Padré’s flag, used as an altar cloth at Ypres, which covered Meanwhile, St. Martin’s Primary School in Dover the coffin as it was brought home – and some studied Tommy and Cecil, and other schools learnt couldn’t resist a little ding of the bell of HMS about their local casualties/ Classroom sessions Verdun! Several groups saw part of the route taken were led by Peter Daniel with Kimi Gilbert, and by the cortège, including Whitehall, where the assisted by Susannah Stephenson-Knight at St Cenotaph, was unveiled as the Unknown Warrior’s Martin’s. coffin paused there at 11am on 11th November 1920. The Scouts were even permitted to enter Handling artefacts from the Downing Street and stand right outside that Great War and poring over famous door at number 10! original sources – birth certificates, service records, newspaper cuttings, and photographs – pupils discovered the men whose names are on local memorials. As they tried on replica uniforms, No Man’s Land became no longer the space In a replica between tables and teacher’s uniform: photo desk, but the desolate area Mark Cornell between trenches. Dry clean socks became an essential to ward off the dreaded trenchfoot, and very few pupils wanted to “chat” when they learnt the grisly Great War meaning of “You, You, and You!” – volunteers for the Army during the MOD the word - burning off lice and their eggs infesting Productions play at Westminster Abbey the seams of uniforms! A short service of Remembrance at the Unknown Warrior’s tomb finished the day, when young On their trips to Westminster, pupils experienced people laid crosses and window-epitaphs in more of military life with theatre group MOD memory of the casualty they had been studying. Productions. Their play was based on “The Mothers of Britain”, first published on the eve of the interment at Westminster Abbey. The story featured women travelling to Westminster, each remembering her loved one - and believing that perhaps he could be the Unknown Warrior. There was plenty of audience participation in the play! Young people joined in and cheered their soldiers on as they waved goodbye. Pupils could then join up themselves to man the “trenches”, and The Act of Remembrance at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Westminster Abbey, led by Canon Jane Hedges Left – one of the window-epitaphs designed by St Martin’s pupils The commemorations of the 90th Anniversary took Martin’s Primary School pupils sang of the place over seven weeks; the culmination was the homecoming. “Dover bids you welcome back to musical performance at St. Martin’s Primary Britain – Dover opens her heart, her arms, for all School, held on the exact 90th anniversary. you have given.” With songs ranging from the Specially-composed by Russell Hepplewhite, with lively “Thundering down the Track” as the coffin words by Helen Eastman, the musical told in song was transported to London through to the lullaby the story of the Unknown Warrior. “Your final sleep, My heart weeps”, the Warrior was reverently laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.

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