Touching Remembrance tribute at Tatworth in South Somerset.

Earlier this month, driving along the A358 in South Somerset, I passed the village of Tatworth where I saw standing beside a hedgerow a touching Remembrance tribute in the form of two figures, a soldier and a nurse, dressed in the style of the First World War.  

Touching Remembrance tribute beside the A358 at Tatworth in South Somerset

A Remembrance tribute seen at the South Somerset village of Tatworth.  

Nearby, also beside the A358, is the imposing Church of St. John the Evangelist.  In its churchyard is a traditional war memorial commemorating Tatworth’s fallen of two world wars.  Twenty-eight names are inscribed for World War One together with the words: “IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN / 1914-1918 / THEY DIED FOR ENGLAND”.  Five more names are inscribed for World War Two.  

The war memorial in the churchyard of St. John the Evangelist at Tatworth in South Somerset.

The Church of St. John the Evangelist stands beside the A358 at Tatworth in South Somerset.

Stogursey Castle, a picturesque Norman ruin in West Somerset.

I recently accompanied my wife to Stogursey, a village 8 miles from Bridgwater in West Somerset, where she was visiting a very good friend from her days at university.  It was a very bright and clear autumn day so after a pleasant lunch I decided, with camera at hand, to stroll down to the remains of Stogursey Castle.

The village and castle take their name from the manor of Stoke which in 1086 was in the possession of William de Falaise.  Williams’s daughter Emma married William de Courcy, the couple received the manor of Stoke upon their wedding and renamed it Stoke Courcy.  The manor became known as Stogursey which is how the village and castle received their names.

The castle dates from the time of William the Conqueror, but was besieged, overthrown and destroyed between 1455 and 1457 during The Wars of The Roses.   

The ruined walls of Stogursey Castle in West Somerset.

From High Street signposts direct you to the castle along the appropriately named Castle Street and public footpaths.  It is not possible to enter the castle grounds as The Landmark Trust operates the gatehouse cottage as a holiday let.  However, it is practicable to walk around part of the outer bank of the moat.

The gatehouse cottage and moat of Stogursey Castle in West Somerset.

The gatehouse cottage, which dates from the 17th century, at Stogursey Castle in West Somerset.

To learn more about the history of Stogursey Castle and its gatehouse cottage visit The Landmark Trust’s website where you will find a mine of information.

https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/stogursey-castle-12342

The loss of the minelayer HMS ABDIEL at Taranto. One of her officers is remembered at the Church of St.Michael and All Angels in the village of Rowberrow, Somerset.

South of Churchill on the A38 in Somerset is a narrow lane leading to Rowberrow, one of those Mendip villages once involved in the mining of calamite.  I first explored the lane around ten years ago; this month I decided to have another look.   Just a few hundred yards from the A38, holding fast to the top of a precipitous hill, is the parish church and manor house.  In the churchyard of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels there is a war memorial in the form of a cross with a bronze long sword attached to its west face.  It commemorates the men of the Somerset Light Infantry who died in the First World War and names Captain R.J.R. Leacroft, of Rowberrow Manor, who was killed serving with the regiment on the first day of the Battle of The Somme.

The war memorial in the churchyard at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Rowberrow in Somerset.

Another name was added to the memorial after the Second World War, that of Lieutenant Commander (E) Anthony Holland Brown who was killed on the 10 September 1943 while aboard the minelayer HMS ABDIEL.  This year saw the 75th anniversary of that warship’s loss in Taranto Harbour.

ABDIEL, completed in April 1941, was the first of a class of 6 minelayers.  They were of 2,650 tons displacement with a speed of almost 40 knots, a crew of 242, carried 156 mines and an armament of 4inch AA guns in 3 twin mountings.  Due to their very high speed the ships of the class were often used to run supplies to the besieged island of Malta.     

On September 10 1943 ABDIEL was sunk by mines in Taranto Harbour while taking part in Operation Slapstick.  Because of a shortage of aircraft the plan involved Royal Navy ships landing British troops of the First Airborne Division to capture the Italian ports of Taranto and Brindisi.  Only hours after berthing in Taranto ABDIEL detonated two mines laid previously by German torpedo boats as they evacuated the harbour.  The ship, which sank in 3 minutes, was carrying men from the 6th (Royal Welch) Parachute Battalion.   The Battalion suffered 58 men killed and 150 wounded while Lt. Cdr. Brown was among the 48 of ABDIEL’S crew who were lost.    

Operation Slapstick was ultimately successful as the First Airborne Division captured the ports of Taranto and Brindisi in working order.

Lt. Cdr. (E) Anthony Holland Brown was 40 years old and the husband of Jessie Elizabeth Brown B.A. (Cantab.) of Rowberrow, Somerset.  He is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial as well as at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels.

The Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Rowberrow in Somerset.

Remembrance figures in Chard, South Somerset.

“Birthplace of powered flight”, proclaim the signs on the main roads leading into South Somerset’s ancient town of Chard.  Therefore it seems appropriate that to commemorate the end of the First World War the figure of an airman stands at attention beside the A358 on the southern fringe of the town.

Sponsored by Chard Town Council the figure of a First World War airman stands at attention.

Chard in South Somerset remembers those who died serving their country. 

Herne Hill in South Somerset on a foggy autumn morning.

There was thick fog in my part of South Somerset this morning.  At around 11am the fog was lifting under a clear blue sky, and Herne Hill began to appear out of the murk.

Herne Hill in South Somerset appears out of the murk on a foggy autumn morning.

"Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer". The chronicle of an RAF bomber pilot during The Battle of France.

Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer, Alastair Panton (Penguin Books, 2018), is an RAF bomber pilot’s remarkable chronicle of his experiences during the Battle of France in May and June 1940.  Flying Officer Alastair Panton was a bomber pilot flying the twin engine Bristol Blenheim Mk IV with 53 Squadron.  With other units from Bomber Command the squadron was part of the RAF’s Advanced Air Striking Force which had been sent to France following the outbreak of war.

Flying reconnaissance missions with his crew of two, Panton was in the thick of the action when Germany launched its Blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940.  The next day his Blenheim was attacked by six Messerschmitt 109s and he was forced to crash land, he suffered burns and both his crew were badly injured.  Panton endured ten eventful days until he linked up with 13 Squadron, another Blenheim unit, at Crecy where he learned 53 Squadron had withdrawn to England.      

The German advance forced the RAF to evacuate Crecy and Panton flew a spare Blenheim back to Tangmere rather than see it left behind and destroyed.  Wondering why the Blenheim was handling so sluggishly Panton discovered the cause when he landed back in England - nine RAF ground crew had crammed into the aircraft for the flight home!

After taking some much needed leave Panton was back in action with 53 Squadron on May 29, this time flying bombing missions in support of the troops being evacuated from Dunkirk.  On May 30 during another bombing mission his aircraft was hit by flak.  Panton managed to fly the damaged Blenheim back to England where he and his crew bailed out successfully over Rye.  Nevertheless, he and his crew were back in action the next day flying 3 more bombing missions in support of the troops at Dunkirk.

On June 1 he took off on yet another bombing mission.  This time he was told to fly low over the Dunkirk beaches, after dropping his bombs, so that the men on the beaches could see that the RAF was supporting them.  Since the German Blitzkrieg began many in the British Expeditionary Force had been asking: “Where is the RAF?”  After Panton’s bomb run he did indeed fly at 50ft over soldiers waiting to be evacuated, but was promptly shot down by a Bren-gunner from the Northumberland Fusiliers!  Panton and his crew were again back in England the next morning after leaving Dunkirk on a tug-boat.

Incredibly, Panton and his crew, with two other crews from 53 Squadron, went back to France on June 5 to fly reconnaissance missions for the French and British forces still resisting.  Panton continued operating from airfields south-west of Paris until the fighting ended.

Alastair Panton’s book is an extraordinary account of bravery, skill, endurance and tragedy packed into just 158 pages.  I could not put this book down and read it in one session – I thoroughly recommend it!  

Is the present Conservative Party really conservative?

As the Conservative Party conference is underway in Birmingham I thought it would be appropriate to consider if the Tories really are conservative anymore.

First of all ponder their present attitude to England’s green and pleasant land.  In the last century Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said: "To me, England is the country, and the country is England".  Would our current Prime Minister or any of her Cabinet colleagues agree with him?  I doubt it after reading Peter Hitchens’ article in the Mail on Sunday on September 2.  He wrote:  

“The Concrete Party's desecration of beauty. 

A gloomy, grey shadow now falls across what has until now been an unspoiled part of our beautiful country.

I have often bicycled across the quiet counties that lie between Oxford and Cambridge, and found great peace there. It is the intensely English countryside through which John Bunyan tramped as he imagined his great book The Pilgrim’s Progress, with its Celestial City and its Delectable Mountains.

They soon won’t be delectable any more. Our Government, which seems to have sold its soul to the developers, is on the brink of ordering the building there of something called the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, another hideous stripe of concrete which will tear up trees and scar hills, and create a long, wide corridor of noise, stink and light pollution.

Everyone knows that such roads solve nothing, and simply attract more traffic. But they will make billions for the builders of box homes in ugly, bare estates alongside the new road.

Yet the decision already seems to have been taken. Did anyone who voted for this Government think they were voting for the desecration of English beauty? The ‘Conservative’ Party should be forced to change its name to the Concrete Party.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6122911/PETER-HITCHENS-war-marriage-controlling-children.html

Conservatives say that they are the party of “law and order”, but can they really make that claim.  According to reports in the media more than 600 police stations have closed in the past eight years.  Bath, for example, is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Somerset with a population of around 90,000 yet it has no police station; the last one was sold to the University of Bath nearly 3 years ago. 

The number of police officers in England and Wales peaked at 141,647 in 2009 when Labour was in power.  The BBC website states: “Since September 2009 – the last set of Home Office figures before the Conservatives came to power – there has been a cut of 22,424 police officers.”  The Tories have decimated the forces of “law and order”.  This is not what one would expect from a conservative government!     

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45477960

 “As a global power, we have the responsibility to sustain our fine armed forces so that they can defend the realm, our overseas territories and our interests around the globe” said the 2017 Conservative Manifesto.  However, actions speak louder than words!  In November 2017 Johnny Mercer, MP for Plymouth Moor View, expressing concerns about cuts in defence spending said he would not “be prepared to see something the size of Belgium in the UK’s armed forces”.  I doubt if Belgium, fine country though it is, considers itself to be a global power!

Lord Michael Ashcroft, an influential conservative, and Isabel Oakeshott have just published a book about the state of Britain’s armed forces called White Flag (Biteback Publishing).  After eight years of defence cuts what on earth could they be thinking?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42138295/conservative-johnny-mercer-on-defence-spending-and-cuts

Defence, law and order, and the English landscape, three areas where the Conservative Party in government does not seem to be very conservative.