Orphaned by the conflict, two people found love in a shared grief
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, we are telling the stories of the ordinary people who made an extraordinary sacrifice for our country. Here Cheryl Fraser, 70, from Hadleigh, Suffolk, pays tribute to her grandfathers, who both died.
MY paternal grandad, Private George Hirst, of the Royal Fusiliers, was just 26 when he was killed in France on September 27, 1918.
His father Samuel entered the Royal Fusiliers before the war and served as a gunner in Dover Castle in 1901.
George died at the Battle of the Canal du Nord and is buried at the Sanders Keep Military Cemetery in Graincourt-Les-Havrincourt. My dad Herbert never really spoke much about the war. He lost his baby brother Stanley in 1916 and his mum Harriet died just three months after George’s death. Her death was recorded as flu but my dad also said it was of a broken heart. He was brought down from Arksey, South Yorkshire, to Ipswich to live with his gran, also called Harriet, when he was just five years old. He had no memories of his father.
I visited the spot where George was killed and it was incredibly moving. I cried but I am so glad I went. I am so proud of him.
My maternal grandad Robert Mills, of the 1st and later the 6th sixth battalion of the Manchester Regiment, was 31 when he died. He was in Manchester recovering from injuries in May 1917 when his wife Lottie died of tuberculosis. He returned to the front line in France, heartbroken. My mother Gladys, who died in 1970, recalls him hugging and kissing her when he left, saying: “Remember I will always love you but I don’t think you will see me again.” My mother was three but never forgot those words. Robert was right – he was killed in Villers-au-Flos heading for the Battle of Bapaume on September 4, 1918.
He is buried at Mont-Huon Military Cemetery in Le Tréport. My mother was brought up by her grandmother, Alice.
My parents’ shared experience of being orphans, losing their parents in the war, brought them together. Devoted to each other, they were wed for 35 years, until my mother died.