Moving tribute for a soldier named in special roll of honour
A SOLDIER from Bollington was honoured in a special ceremony at the Tower of London Poppies.
John James Nolan was born in Bollington in 1890 and enlisted in April 1916. The slight soldier - who was just 5’ 2” tall and weighed 101 lb - was a private in the Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment and died in the Battle of Courtrai on October 14, 1918. He was buried in the Hooge Crater cemetery near Ypres in Belgium.
His name was read out at the Tower of London in a Roll of Honour called each evening to remember soldiers killed during the war.
John’s great niece Marion Clowes and her daughter Rosie Clowesboth, from Bollington, Marion’s cousin Elaine Pickering and Hilda Dorey, who is John’s niece and lives in Macclesfield, travelled to London for the emotional tribute.
Hilda Dorey, whose dad Albert was John’s brother, said: “We didn’t know anything about my uncle until my sister Violet Harper died a few years ago and his identity disc was found in her posses- sions. We looked him up on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website and found out where he was buried.”
Elaine, who lives in Aylesbury, applied to have John’s name read out and was delighted he was chosen.
She said: “It was very moving.
“There were hundreds of people there but everyone was silent while the names were read. On the way home, the railway employee who’d heard the story on the way down upgraded mum and my cousins to First Class. It