Description
Standing proudly in the grounds of Our Lady & St Joseph’s Church, Carlisle is an 18ft White Marble Memorial bearing witness to the 75 men who fell in the Great War. Little was known of those men, some of whom are remembered without their Christian name or initials.
Following four years of dedicated research, the authors’ have been able to painstakingly trace the lives of 73 of these lost men all of whom made the supreme sacrifice for their King and country far from home. This book has traced their parents, siblings, careers and sadly the last few days leading to their loss.
Men who came from all walks of life, some born abroad, three made new lives in Canada and Australia, heard the call of duty of the mother country to which they returned to don khaki. Poignant moments when the Parish Priest announces the loss of the loss of a parishioner to his congregation. The sad letters home, the telegrams that didn’t arrive, the lost and precious belongings that didn’t make it. A son who was only identified by his button, a father who waited 12 months before his beloved son was traced, men who continue to share a grave. Men who still lie somewhere in foreign fields. A printer, a farmer, a decorator, a mine owner, a future priest, a career soldier all are recorded as their young lives become know to us.
Seminarian Francis McNiff shot down over the English Chanel on his first flight; James Murray who was discharged, for ill discipline, from the Navy then joined the Army using a false name; Arthur Henry was imprisoned for being underage, before being returned to Carlisle.
