Thursday 27 March 2014

Dodworth Cenotaph - renovation

A group of people interested in community matters, including local counselors, meet each week at St John's Church on a Thursday morning - and are taking steps to ensure that the above is suitably prepared for the events due to take place later this year.

The work will involve cleaning and re-pointing the stonework, and maybe other things such as a means to secure wreaths when laid.

That we are fortunate, to have such a group of people, to look after matters such as this, should not pass unnoticed, hence they are commended for their efforts.

The Thursday morning meetings are informal, last about one hour and start at about 9.30, all are welcome to come along, and they deserve the support of the whole village. Come along and have a cup of tea, or coffee, and a bun, and have a chat, and help make this community stronger, warmer, and better.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning, that there are now, more and better supported, community initiatives in the village, than has been the case for a long time. Well done to all involved!

Dodworth and the First World War - a memorial

Some men of Dodworth made great sacrifices in the First World War.

Some made the ultimate sacrifice in giving their lives for our future.

Others were seriously injured by explosions, gas, gunshot and many other terrible things.

Not one of them came home unmarked by the trauma of what happened to them.

The psychological damage alone was immense, they saw things that no-one should ever see, that no-one is made to see, and they experienced things that no-one is made to experience.

Then the survivors came home and got on with their lives as best they could.

Sometimes that was anything but easy.

Many were marked for life.

Some fellow sufferers understood, and gave support.

For most of them, their reward was a life-time working down a local coal mine, not the easiest of lives, in those days the mortality and morbidity of those jobs was incredibly bad, and the industrial diseases they encountered and contended with - were worse than anything experienced by anyone today.

The lives they led were hard, as were the lives of their family, and of the community in which they lived.

So - let us not forget them.

This year is the 100 year anniversary of that conflict.

To ensure that those who endured it are not forgotten, a group of local people are planning to create a memorial for them. This memorial will not be a statue but some sort of record of what they went through.

Interested people are meeting each week at Dodworth Library to create that memorial - and they need help for their cause.

The first meeting is tonight 27 March 2014 at 6.00 p.m.

The members of the group will be able to give more details after that meeting, but for now what they want is stories, big ones and lesser ones, about your relatives - and others - during the time of that Great War.

Come along with your stories, talk to your relatives and friends, and get them to come along, or to share their stories, or hand them in at the Library.

Remember that nobody is left alive from the time of the First World War - this is the first year that has been so - therefore we must do this thing for them - in memory of them - we must together make a memorial of them - that can be preserved for the future.

Do your little bit to help - share a story - a recollection no matter how simple - even if you have no-one connected with the war, tell us what your thoughts are on this matter.

For my part I will write about my Uncle and my Father's relatives who died in battle, and about my Grandfathers who both survived but were terribly injured and spent a lifetime physically marked by what they went through. I will share what I know of what happened to the families they left behind, and were at home whilst they were away soldiering, and when they returned.