Once there were warriors

THE recycling of wood will help the story of the Battle of Delville Wood during World War 1 live on after 100 years.

Michaelhouse planted a cypress tree to remember each of the 43 members of the school family who never came home. They weren’t suited to the clay soil and were replaced with pin oaks.

Over the years, a couple of them along Warrior’s Walk have fallen.

The school has made a number of symbolic St Michael’s crosses from the wood of those fallen trees, which its delegation will take to France.

Some will be laid beside the grave of former rector Anthony Brown, who was killed at Delville Wood, while others will be for the Michaelhouse party that has headed off to the centenary commemoration.

The school also has memorial lights to remember those who fell, donated by Mr Justice Frederick Spence Tatham, who lost two sons in the war, however, the lights serve to remember all the Michaelhouse World War 1 dead.

DUNCAN GUY

SO MUCH for high schools having sent their boys off to war, what about the junior schools?

Historian Jeremy Oddy who has been behind establishing a memorial garden at Glenwood Preparatory School to those who fell during World War 1, says there were some who never made high school, let alone coming home.

A ceremony at the school will mark its opening on July 20.

“It’s the day the survivors were relieved from Delville Wood and piped into the Happy Valley, the rest camp on the Western Front,” said Oddy.

Back in the day, the school was known as Bulwer Park Government School.

Among the features of the garden will be an oak tree – which at this stage looks like nothing more than a stick in the ground – that is the descendant of a tree near Delville Wood, planted by a Huguenot settler to Franschoek in the Western Cape in 1688.

DHS already has such an oak tree in honour of Delville Wood, also growing in the low altitude suburb of Durban.

Glenwood Prep’s garden will be used by boys as a waiting area.

“We have the names of three soldiers who died during World War 1 – we had the names of 11 but there is some doubt in our records that some of the boys were actually involved because of their ages,” said Oddy.

However, he acknowledged that it was not unknown to lie about one’s age in order to volunteer to serve in the war.

“It could have been at a very tender age that these little boys took up the call so this school would like to remember them,” he added.

“These under age kids went to war. Some may not have gone to high school.