BOOK REVIEWS

Remembering the Great War in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire Ray Westlake

Following his two-volume record of war graves and memorials in Gwent, Ray Westlake has repeated the formula for this new book, which concentrates on graves and memorials in Goucestershire and Herefordshire.

Most people, when travelling around the country, can't help seeing the more obvious war memorials in town centres or on village greens, but there are others in churches, schools, town halls and libraries which aren't so easy to see. Indeed, some whole buildings are memorials in their own right.  And there are also lots of war graves here in the UK - 1593 graves in 217 cemeteries and churchyards in Gloucestershire and 228  gravesin 100 locations in Herefordshire. 
Remembrance is far more "all around us" than we might think.

In this book, Ray Westlake illustrates a large selection of these lesser-seen memorials, and his choice is not governed by excellence in style or significance of those commemorated.  As he says in his introduction, "Every war grave, every memorial, is as important as the next in as much as the names on them must never be forgotten. And all of them, because of what they represent, can be considered as average."

The book does include town and village memorials, but the majority of memorials illustrated are smaller and more private. They remember former members of small communities, such as church congregations or even smaller and more personal groups - individual families. Sometimes they recall the close bond of comradeship which was shared by those who actually did the fighting.  I'm thinking of the simple little memorial to Pte. Owen Slater, 1st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards, in the church at Much Dewchurch.  The memorial was placed there by Lieut.  T. E. R. Symons, and Pte. Slater was his soldier-servant. Officers' servants had to act as bodyguards to their officers when in action, so perhaps, but for Pte. Slater, it might have been Lieut. Symons who was being remembered on a church wall somewhere. The Remembrance expressed here, as in the case of so many of these smaller memorials, is very real.

What makes Ray Westlake such a valuable "finder" of memorials is that he has the skills and resources to research the records of those whose names he finds.  Some of the most absorbing parts of this book are the details of what happened to some of those commemorated - stories of bravery, endurance and devotion to duty in the face of extreme danger, harship and despair.

I note that I've just referred to Ray Westlake as a "finder" of war memorials. Thinking about it, this is an inaccurate description but instead of editing out the reference, I'll leave it and correct myself.  Ray westlake doesn't FIND these memorials; they are not really hidden or lost.  What he does is take the time to stop and LOOK at them. That's the important thing.

Remembering the Great War in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire

is published by:

Brewin Books

Soft Covers

122 pages, many black-and-white illustrations

ISBN: 1-85858-226-1

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