Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The ‘Woolp who left hi in WW1.. an
The regulars of The Woolpack in Emmerdale have seen their share of romance, heartache and tragedy since the soap started back in 1972. But now a love story that began more than 100 years ago in the real Woolpack, the pub where the soap’s early episodes were filmed, has come to light that rivals any of the show’s biggest tear-jerker plots.
Tonight, Emmerdale actress Charlotte Bellamy tells the story of Joshua Booth, the son of the pub landlord, and Winnie, the girl he wooed with letters from the Western Front during the First World War.
In Emmerdale 1918, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, Charlotte, 45, who plays vicar’s widow Laurel Turner, is moved to tears by the tragic tale of the war-time hero.
She says: “It is very moving and we can never forget what these men did for us.”
Emmerdale was filmed on location in Esholt, West Yorkshire, for 22 years, before the village was recreated on a set.
Back in 1914 Esholt had a population of just 200 people and the pub, then called The Commercial Inn, was a centre of village life run by Fred and Mary Ann Booth, who had one son, Joshua.
When war broke out he was 22 years old and worked as a wool sorter in nearby Bradford, pulling pints in the evenings to help his parents.
Local historian Bev Anderson, who researched Joshua’s life, says: “He was very well known in the village. He played football, he was in the cricket team - I think he was quite a catch.”
But Joshua had fallen for his cousin, Winnie, who had stayed at the pub three years earlier.
And when he marched off to war in 1914, with the Duke of Wellington Regiment, the pair vowed to keep in touch.
In tiny Esholt, 53 men had been called up to serve king and country.
Bev says: “On one street alone in the village, 11 men went to war. So every house was affected either by a member of their own family going or a neighbour.”
Before they were sent to the front in France, the men travelled to training camps in Grimsby, Doncaster and the Yorkshire Dales, where they had to practise with sticks instead of rifles because there was a shortage of guns.
Hardly the preparation they needed for what lay ahead. Charlotte says: “The more you hear about the First World War and about how it really affected a community like Esholt, you realise it must have been really strange for them.
“That feeling of loss and just not knowing when they were going to return and if they were going to return.”
Joshua and Winnie did keep in touch and he sent his sweetheart a series of love letters from the trenches.
One of them read: “We are having a good Christmas on the whole, the only thing that spoils it is that you are not here to share it with us. I think about you every day wondering how you are getting on.”
He also sent Winnie gifts, including an embroidered handkerchief which he had bought while in France.
Charlotte learned that Joshua and his company were on the French front line at the Battle of the Somme, where 57,000 men were killed or injured in just one day. His battalion was 800 yards from the German front line trenches. Around 35 men from his company were killed or wounded but Joshua survived to fight on.
Charlotte says: “It’s hard to believe that Joshua was pulling pints a year earlier and then was in a battle which was so hideous. Maybe his family didn’t hear for weeks on end whether he survived or not – that must have been terrible.” But while he was fighting for his country Joshua suffered a terrible blow on the personal front.
Bev says: “Winnie’s parents decided to emigrate to Canada and she had to go with them. Joshua could only hope that Winnie would make enough money out there to return to Esholt and join him after the war.” Tragically, it was not to be. Winnie fell in love with someone else and by 1917 Joshua was writing to her as “Mrs Foster” in Canada. Charlotte was shocked by the soapstyle plot twist.
She says: “It was clear from the letters that Joshua wanted to have a future with Winnie, marry her, have children together. She didn’t wait for him. That is devastating for Joshua. That was not the ending I wanted to hear. I wanted him to walk back into the village with bunting and cream teas and Winnie waiting there for him.”
But Joshua, who had risen to the rank of corporal, was still fighting, deep within the trench network on the front line of the Third Battle of the Somme.
Joshua’s battalion suffered many losses in what was one of the bloodiest battles of the campaign. He then went on to fight at Ypres. On December 11, 1917, his dugout was hit by a stray German shell.
Joshua – who was just 25 – was killed instantly, along with two comrades.
He is buried in the Dochy Farm New British Cemetery in Belgium alongside 1,439 other soldiers, including 44 of his fellow Yorkshiremen.
Charlotte visited the site at the end of her journey for the Emmerd
Sitting at his grave side, “It was so near the end of th
“This young man left little Yorkshire village where he was pulling pints in the local pub, and then he went on this journey and saw the things that he did and fought the battles that he survived, then he died.
“He just didn’t really have a life.”
Winnie never forgot her first sweetheart either – as Bev discovered.
Bev, who runs the genealogy firm Folk Finders, had set out to trace the war stor of her own great grandfath of the 53 Esholt men listed War Memorial. Richard Wil