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Old 22-11-2014, 03:58 PM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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Default Tales from the Front

An Evening Chronicle article from 9 August 1915:
"Writing from the Dardanelles to Mr and Mrs Arthur Sprigg, of Wellwood Street, Amble, A.B. Edward Sanderson, of Broomhill who is in the Anson Battalion, says:
I am keeping fit and well, and so is John. We have at last arrived on the Peninsula and we are not far off the trenches. We had a very pleasant voyage. I am writing this in my dug-out, which I share with a West Stanley lad. We had to dig it yesterday, which is a lot different from putting on a nice clean starched collar and going to church. We arrived here about 9 o'clock on Saturday night, marched to the rest camp, and had a good sleep under artillery fire. But I slept soundly all the time. The firing seems to be heavier at night-time than through the day, but it is bad enough at all times. We were working in a party today. We started at 5 a.m. and we got called back for fresh orders about 9 o'clock. While I was frying my bacon this morning, a shell dropped about thirty yards from me. That gives one an appetite! It makes you feel as if you could eat the Turks. I got back to our camp, and into my dug-out. Another shell dropped just twenty yards off. It buried a lad in dirt and threw a lot of dirt into my face, but the lad was none the worse for it. One has just to walk about and take no notice of shells. It is no good "ducking" one's head; if one does do anything, it is best just to lie down. It is very hot here. I expect we will be like darkies when we come back again. Won't we have a "bust up" when we return? We may have it all over by November 12, which is your humble's birthday."

And it seems he did survive, being on the 1918 Absent Voters' List.
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Old 22-11-2014, 08:01 PM
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Coquet Coquet is offline
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He made it all the way through. With the obligatory bouts of dysentery for that theatre of war.

Some brief service details have survived and are on the 'find my past' site. A miner, 5' 8", black hair, blue eyes. Born 12. 11. 1894
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