204477 L/sgt Andrew Charles "Mac" McIver British Army 2nd Btn. Durham Light Infantry from:Newcastle upon Tyne From his service records, I have discovered that my grandfather Andrew Charles McIver initially joined the special reserves at the age of 17, ( No 400700 ). After a few months he reached the age of 18 and joined the Durham Light Infantry, ( No 11555 ), and I believe, posted to Colchester for training with the 3rd Battalion. He was posted to France in May or June 1915 to join the 2nd battalion DLI, where, on the 8th August he received a bayonet wound at the "Hooge". He was sent to the 5th northern hospital in Leicester for treatment until Dec 1916 when he posted back to France. Between this posting date and Mar 1917 he was gassed and once again returned to England but only until May 1917 when he was returned to France but I am unsure if he was still part of the DLI or he had at this point was in the 798 area employment coy. Its very difficult to decipher the service records as they are very faint and damaged, I do however know that in May 1919 he was a stretcher bearer at the Windmill camp in Boulogne from an order slip that he kept that is now 90 years old. On his discharge he was serving as a L/sgt with the West Yorkshire Regiment at the Northern command discharge centre in Ripon. Grandad very rarely spoke of his time in WW1 so its only by the aid of various wesites, mostly unreadable records and the DLI museum that this part of his life can be recorded and remembered. The only story that he ever related to me was that at some time he was a "runner" between trenches. On carrying a message to his officer he was slightly wounded in the leg, when entering the command post his officer glared at him and ask " why are you not standing straight man", "I've been injured in the leg sir, sorry sir", grandad replied, with that the officer moved over to him and proceeded to cut open his trouser leg, with this grandad got very aggitated, " stay still, whats wrong with you man?" the officer growled, "Its the other leg sir", said poor grandad. He went two days with a racy split in his trouser leg.
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