Voices of the Silent
by Girvan and District Great War Project
Blog: No. 008 (10/04/2018)
We are often asked “why?” when talking to people about our research.
I will try to answer this "why?" as best as I can (and I’m sure there will be fellow researchers who can relate to a number of the points we make). Research can take you in many different directions and tangents, and as the old saying goes “every day is a school day”.
Whether it is Joe, the priest who vanishes after upsetting the Bishop , Sandy, the footballing legend who shoots his brother dead in Australia (trust me, both of these will need a post all of their own), or James, the 21 year old who died during World War One and is listed on the Thiepval Memorial along with over 72,000 other men whose bodies were never recovered.
I will try to answer this "why?" as best as I can (and I’m sure there will be fellow researchers who can relate to a number of the points we make). Research can take you in many different directions and tangents, and as the old saying goes “every day is a school day”.
Whether it is Joe, the priest who vanishes after upsetting the Bishop , Sandy, the footballing legend who shoots his brother dead in Australia (trust me, both of these will need a post all of their own), or James, the 21 year old who died during World War One and is listed on the Thiepval Memorial along with over 72,000 other men whose bodies were never recovered.
Thiepval Memorial (Image: CWGC)
I am not a professional historian by any means, and would never profess to be one, but sometimes just having sufficient passion is enough. That’s what drives us all to put faces to the names, or for want of a better phrase, to put the 'meat on the bones'. Whether you are starting out on a journey to find out more about your past, whether it's family, a local history project or even just as a hobby, it is this
passion which will drive you on, overtake your life, cause sleepless nights and bring you to unbridled joy when you find “that certificate”.
There are many parallels to researching your family tree and researching a local War memorial. The strongest one for me is that they become part of you and you feel very protective of them. “Uncle Sandy, Father Joe and wee George McCreath, the piper” the list could go on forever, but as I have been told on many occasions, (and I often do!), this is the passion that I refer to earlier.
All it takes is for someone to mention for, "oh I’ve got someone buried in Seafield in Edinburgh", and 'I am off on one'.
Well let me tell you a story about Seafield, and four hours and many bottles of San Pellegrino later, I am still going on, recounting tales of miners, Falkirk in the sunshine, Everton Football Club, F.A Cup Final winning goals, Australia, court trials, Devils Island and the lifelong
friendships made before finally getting back to my original point.
The same applies to researching the local men of Girvan and surrounding villages who fell in the Great War. Not only the ones on the War Memorial, but the ones on School and Church Rolls of Honour, and the ones mentioned on headstones (whether local or foreign). They have become our “boys” and we feel a connection to them that is hard to explain.
Here is one example of that… our 'French Connection':
The French merchant ship Longwy was heading into the Firth of Clyde with a cargo of iron ore from the Spanish port of Bilbao when she was torpedoed by UC-75 on the night of 4 November 1917. She went down in the same area where the Bayano had been lost. The weather was rough and none of the 38 on board survived. The bodies of three of the crew, including the captain, Joseph Huet from
Saint-Malo, were washed ashore near Girvan and were buried in the town’s Doune Cemetery. The following appeal appeared in the local press:
‘It would be a graceful thing on the part of this community, if there were a representative attendance at the interment’.
Captain Huet’s remains were later returned to France, but at Girvan, crosses bearing the legend ‘Mort pour la France’ mark the graves of Adolphe Harre and S. Brajuel.
passion which will drive you on, overtake your life, cause sleepless nights and bring you to unbridled joy when you find “that certificate”.
There are many parallels to researching your family tree and researching a local War memorial. The strongest one for me is that they become part of you and you feel very protective of them. “Uncle Sandy, Father Joe and wee George McCreath, the piper” the list could go on forever, but as I have been told on many occasions, (and I often do!), this is the passion that I refer to earlier.
All it takes is for someone to mention for, "oh I’ve got someone buried in Seafield in Edinburgh", and 'I am off on one'.
Well let me tell you a story about Seafield, and four hours and many bottles of San Pellegrino later, I am still going on, recounting tales of miners, Falkirk in the sunshine, Everton Football Club, F.A Cup Final winning goals, Australia, court trials, Devils Island and the lifelong
friendships made before finally getting back to my original point.
The same applies to researching the local men of Girvan and surrounding villages who fell in the Great War. Not only the ones on the War Memorial, but the ones on School and Church Rolls of Honour, and the ones mentioned on headstones (whether local or foreign). They have become our “boys” and we feel a connection to them that is hard to explain.
Here is one example of that… our 'French Connection':
The French merchant ship Longwy was heading into the Firth of Clyde with a cargo of iron ore from the Spanish port of Bilbao when she was torpedoed by UC-75 on the night of 4 November 1917. She went down in the same area where the Bayano had been lost. The weather was rough and none of the 38 on board survived. The bodies of three of the crew, including the captain, Joseph Huet from
Saint-Malo, were washed ashore near Girvan and were buried in the town’s Doune Cemetery. The following appeal appeared in the local press:
‘It would be a graceful thing on the part of this community, if there were a representative attendance at the interment’.
Captain Huet’s remains were later returned to France, but at Girvan, crosses bearing the legend ‘Mort pour la France’ mark the graves of Adolphe Harre and S. Brajuel.
Doune Cemetery. (Image: geography.org.uk)
It makes you crave more information, and when you find it, it fills you with a sense of both achievement and satisfaction in the respect of the fact that it may have been a long time since their names have ever been mentioned, or even thought about and that is down to your hard work and effort - their names are mentioned again.
It is not all plain sailing though. There is one man on the war memorial and we have all his service records. The problem we have is that he is writing to the war pension office during the 1930s. We can only assume that when they collected the names for the war memorial that he was possibly recorded as missing in action (not mentioned in his Service Records) and his family had not heard otherwise until after the war.
Then we have men who seem to have no apparent connection to the Girvan area. Hugh Brown Wallace was from Saltcoats. After a fair bit of research, we discovered that he served as an apprentice printer in the town and set up the local newspaper, The Carrick Herald.
In my opinion, we have a duty to record and tell these stories for future generations. They will never hear their voices, but will know their stories.
There is an old African proverb that I often quote to people:
“Every time someone dies, a library burns down”
Gather any bits of information you can from the older generation, because once they are gone, all the stories and tales that they have will be lost forever. Then that is where the fun starts – you have to work out if the stories are true, or who on earth 'Auntie Bunty Nina' is.
Whatever your reason for starting, be prepared to have your life consumed by frustration, bad handwriting, a few skeletons, tears, laughter, dodgy spellings and waking up in the middle of the night because you have worked it out. If you are lucky enough to suffer from any of the above, then congratulations… you have 'the passion'.
It is not all plain sailing though. There is one man on the war memorial and we have all his service records. The problem we have is that he is writing to the war pension office during the 1930s. We can only assume that when they collected the names for the war memorial that he was possibly recorded as missing in action (not mentioned in his Service Records) and his family had not heard otherwise until after the war.
Then we have men who seem to have no apparent connection to the Girvan area. Hugh Brown Wallace was from Saltcoats. After a fair bit of research, we discovered that he served as an apprentice printer in the town and set up the local newspaper, The Carrick Herald.
In my opinion, we have a duty to record and tell these stories for future generations. They will never hear their voices, but will know their stories.
There is an old African proverb that I often quote to people:
“Every time someone dies, a library burns down”
Gather any bits of information you can from the older generation, because once they are gone, all the stories and tales that they have will be lost forever. Then that is where the fun starts – you have to work out if the stories are true, or who on earth 'Auntie Bunty Nina' is.
Whatever your reason for starting, be prepared to have your life consumed by frustration, bad handwriting, a few skeletons, tears, laughter, dodgy spellings and waking up in the middle of the night because you have worked it out. If you are lucky enough to suffer from any of the above, then congratulations… you have 'the passion'.
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