We will remember them

An original silk poppy, worn on November 11th 1920, at the unveiling of the Cenotaph in London, to commemorate the men who gave their lives in the Great War. Donated by Mrs Landin, for The Deepings Remember 1914 to 1918 exhibition in November 2014, it is on permanent display at Market Deeping Town Hall.

Many of you will remember the exhibition in the Deepings Community Centre six years ago - with its reconstructions of a battlefield trench and a wartime home, displays of model aircraft and a wonderful airfield layout, memorabilia and medals, and school projects on First World War ancestors. The focal point was in the main hall - a gallery of posters telling the stories of Deepings’ servicemen. This was where Maggie Ashcroft first met Cissie Vickers, born and brought up in Deeping St James. She had come to see a poster about her father, Jack Burton – and was taken by surprise to find her Grandma Smart, her mother Alice and her Uncle Jack featured on a poster about West Deeping servicemen, “Boys from the Row”.

Susannah Smart, outside her cottage in The Row,

West Deeping

Susannah Smart’s twins, Alice and Jack Smart.

Along with the contents of other family albums, the Smart family photographs (on the previous page) now appear in the book West Deeping remembers 1919, researched and written by Maggie Ashcroft.

The book covers a relatively short time frame in the long history of a small South Lincolnshire community – in the aftermath of the Great War. With a village trail of more than fifty places of interest and a cast of over two hundred characters, it is also a Roll of Honour – commemorating the men of West Deeping who served in the armed forces between 1914 and 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war.

The memorials in the village church are simply lists of names, ranks and regiments, but throughout the book there are personal profiles of the servicemen, many linked to where their families lived in the village.

Maggie not only wanted to tell their individual stories but to put them into the context of both time and place – to find out how they fitted into the bigger story of West Deeping.

So the book starts by drawing on contemporary sources – mainly local newspapers – to describe and portray aspects of life in the village over a hundred years ago. A chapter about “The aftermath of the Great War” records how the village honoured those who served, entertaining the returned heroes and commemorating those who did not.

The main section of West Deeping remembers 1919 is a house-by-house directory of the village as it would have been when the surviving servicemen returned home to their families. Information is pieced together as well as is possible a hundred years later – from censuses, directories and newspaper cuttings. 1919 was an important year for West Deeping – but not only because many of its young men returned home from the war. It also brought a new era for West Deeping: an elected Parish Council met for the first time; there was a new headmistress at the village school; a new Rector and a new occupant at the Manor; long-running problems with flooding and poor housing were finally dealt with by installing a new drain and building the first-ever “council” houses.

As well as the postcard (sent in 1908) which features on the front cover, there are many illustrations throughout the book: archive images, contemporary postcards, maps and colour photographs of village buildings as they are a hundred years later.

The book’s scope may be more limited by the time frame and its structure less conventional than other village histories, but the purpose of West Deeping remembers 1919 is the same – to provide a lasting record of the village’s heritage for twenty-first century descendants, many of whom are now scattered across the country and all over the world. Challenging as it was to fit the personal stories of those people from over a hundred years ago into the wider context of the history of the village at that time, this book represents another act of commemoration.

West Deeping remembers 1919 is on sale for £18.50 at the Deepings Community Library or direct from the author at 32 King Street, West Deeping. Phone: 01778 344768 or 07808 585189 Email: wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk