Happy New Year

D/DLI 7/776/37

A nice slice of trench cake

If you've forgotten to make the Christmas cake, but still want to give something similar a go, why not try a First World War trench cake? Made by family members at home and sent to the loved ones serving abroad, it was a dense fruit cake, made to last and to withstand the journey from home to the front line.

Regular readers will already know about the First World Bake Off Competition we held at the Durham at War Volunteer Conference. We had sent out the recipe below, taken from The Telegraph, and I've now been in touch with a few of the participants about their cake-making experience.

Ingredients
1/2lb flour
4 oz margarine
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/4 pint of milk
3 oz brown sugar
3 oz cleaned currants
2 teaspoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
nutmeg
ginger
grated lemon rind

Method

Grease a cake tin. Rub margarine into the flour in a basin. Add the dry ingredients. Mix well. Add the soda dissolved in vinegar and milk. Beat well. Turn into the tin. Bake in a moderate oven for about two hours.

Bake Off winner, Margaret Hedley, says she didn't tweak the recipe at all. However, she did do "a test bake beforehand and shared it with my history group."

Pigeon delivering the trench cake

Our balloon modelling volunteer, Margaret Eason, wrote this of her Bake Off experience:

"I confess I did use butter instead of margarine in the Trench Cake I made for the Bake Off but to no avail, it was still awful. It didn’t rise at all and if a similar effort had got to the trenches it would no doubt have been returned to sender with a pair of broken false teeth stuck in it. Many many congratulations to the winner, how she got her Trench Cake to rise with those ingredients is beyond me and I suspect beyond even Mary Berry!

With my cake surrendering to gravity, I decided to get it airborne by other means: it crossed my mind that pigeons had played a valiant part in the war effort and so had parcels. I decided to combine the two by making a pigeon out of balloons and attaching it to a Tupperware container wrapped in string and brown paper addressed to The Front. 

Parcels have a special meaning for me not only because I have sent many hundreds to my son who has lived abroad for more than 20 years, but also because I learned from the work I have done as a volunteer on the Durham at War project how important parcels were to the Prisoners of War in Germany. In May 1915 Mrs Grant Duff and the ladies of the British Legation Red Cross Organisation in Berne, Switzerland, sent the first Red Cross parcels to the prisoners of war. Bread was baked in Berne for 100,000 men. A loaf was sent to each prisoner and lasted 4-6 weeks, I was surprised to learn that undelivered parcels were returned to Berne from Germany when the addressee could not be traced. Sick and wounded prisoners of all the ‘belligerent’ states were interned in Switzerland. Colonel Picot, Commanding Officer of the British Internees in Switzerland, wrote in his report that the first train full of British POW’s, ‘battered remnants of humanity’ arrived in May 1916, ‘one carriage held 27 men with only 3 legs between them, but they were cheery, full of joy at their escape from captivity and very disinclined to speak of their past experiences.’ 

Recording the experiences of those who fought is very harrowing at times so getting together and having a Bake Off rallies the troops no end, so thank you to Jo and Victoria and congratulations again to the worthy winner."

And with that, we would like to wish all our readers a Happy Christmas from the Durham at War team.

An amazing turn up

This week, we have another post from John Sheen.

Having written several books on the Northumberland Fusiliers and the Durham Light Infantry, almost every week I get one or two requests for information about men who served in the units I have written about. I always try to reply and, if needed, do a little bit of research for the enquiry. However, in quite a few cases once the reply is sent, I never hear again from the person requesting the information, not even a thank you.

Recently though, I have had a real treat, and in some ways an eye opener. Many will be familiar with the story of the execution of the three members of 19th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry (Bantams), in 1917 (for those who aren’t, you can read their stories here:

http://www.durhamatwar.org.uk/search/?search=shot+at+dawn+19th

Lance Corporal John McDonald, 19th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, photograph kindly provided by his family

I received a letter via my publishers from a couple who bought my book, ‘Durham Pals: 18th, 19th, and 22nd (Service) Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry’, as they were very interested in Lance Corporal John McDonald, one of three ‘shot at dawn’. This couple had a received a request from their cousin in Australia whose maiden name was McDonald and grew up in Hartley’s Buildings, Sunderland, to do some family research. Her daughter was coming to the UK and would be visiting Sunderland to see if she could find the buildings.

The couple did so, and they discovered that the John McDonald who was ‘shot at dawn’, was their cousin’s father, and the visiting daughter’s grandfather. The information came as a shock as ‘no one in the family in Australia knew anything about this and hardly anything about the family in general.’ They go on to say that ‘a very poignant fact in this story, as you will maybe have realised … John McDonald’s daughter is still alive at the age of 102 and lives in Fremantle, Western Australia.’ Luckily, they found this information before the end of John’s granddaughter’s visit, and they were able to take a trip to France to visit his grave. 

I have been able to tell the family that the three Bantams are commemorated still in County Durham and in particular on the Durham at War website. I received this email in reply, ‘Thank you very much for the information on John McDonald. The family in Australia are more than pleased with the outcome so far. We shall keep trying to find out more about him, mainly for his 102 year old daughter in Australia. No one in the Family in Australia can hardly remember his name being mentioned since they emigrated in 1928. Perhaps this is understandable. It is very nice to know that the three men ‘shot at dawn’ are still remembered in Durham.’  The family in Australia were able to find a photograph of John and emailed a copy for inclusion on Durham at War. 

At about the same time, I received another request, this time from David, an active reservist with the Gendarmerie in France who is researching Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the First and Second World Wars. Six years ago, he found some First World War medals being sold by a dealer and started researching the recipient. This was Company Quarter Master Sergeant (CQMS) Gawin Wild of 26th Battalion (Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers, he features in my collection of Tyneside Irish photographs and is one of the soldiers researched on Durham at War. 

The medals of CQMS Gawin Wild, photograph kindly provided by David Devigne

David, and his colleague Al, have supplied further information on Gawin, including that he went on to work for the diplomatic corps. He was made vice Consul in Bordeaux in the early part of the Second World War, once Paris had fallen to the Nazi’s in 1940, the French government moved to Bordeaux, thus increasing the importance of this role. In 1942, he was posted to Algiers in the same role. In 1919, Gawin had married a French girl, and they retired back to France in 1952. Gawin died in 1957 and is buried in Saint Seurin de Cadourne. David’s email read:

‘I wish that this man be honoured by the UK’s civil and military authorities in this Centenary of WW1. Gawin Wild was at first a miner, deserving soldier and member of the UK’s diplomatic corps and he rest in a place where he is not honoured as he should be. 

There are no plaques over his grave site describing his service to the Land of Hope and Glory.  There is no mention of that proud and hard fighting regiment he fought with in WW1 and its 52 Battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers.

I am in contact with the Mayor where he and his wife rest in peace, and their resting place has not been flowered for years. I also explained to the Mayor who he was and the Mayor now understands the significance and the honour that his town has of having such a great man buried here.’

We have exchanged many emails and the Regimental Headquarters of the Fusiliers are now involved, it is hoped that something may be done to remember CQMS Wild. Al’s last reply included the following:

''From miner and soldier to Vice Consul' what a story, what a life lived with gusto. Be also aware that the secretary of the mayor said ... "if the Mayor had known that such a gentleman and soldier was buried here he would have had a ceremony over his grave every November 11."'

So the work of remembering the men of County Durham does not slow down, indeed it appears to get faster by the day.