Newly discovered photographs show unveiling of memorial
Grandson of WWI vet unearths a treasure trove of images taken by his grandfather during journey to France in 1936
The pictures are tiny and faded. In some, the monuments loom large. In others, abandoned trenches provide a window into the realities of war. And for years they’ve been hidden away. Until now. “This book of pictures fell upon me, and I opened it up and I was just startled,” John Wright said of his grandfather’s photos showing the unveiling of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in July 1936.
His grandfather, Walter Wright, was one of the organizers of the Toronto pilgrimage to Vimy, France, made by thousands of Canadian veterans for the unveiling.
The memorial, unveiled by King Edward VIII, is dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War.
The photographs — which cover the period from the beginning of Walter’s journey in Montreal to the unveiling of the memorial and a reception for veterans at Buckingham Palace — have previously been seen only by Walter’s family, John said.
Walter was a chocolate dipper at Rowntree’s, an English confectionery business in York, before joining the West Yorkshire Regiment in1914. He was injured, but soon after being released from hospital he joined an artillery unit and remained with it until the end of the war.
He travelled to Canada in 1922, a year after his wife and three children arrived, and joined the Loyal Edmonton Regiment as chief warrant officer. A few years later Walter moved to Toronto, where he worked as a singer in vaudeville, and eventually as a postman. He died in 1955.
John, who never got to meet his grandfather, said he’s done “a lot of research on him, which has taken me far and wide.”
“There’s precious little which survives families,” John said. “For me, it gives me a chance to try and fathom what it was like for these people to go through so much and who gave so much, and then look forward into the generations we have. I look on these people with awe. I don’t know how they did it.”