208971 Pte. Allison Douglas Wilson British Army 5th East Yorkshire My Grandad, Allison Douglas Wilson, enlisted in the 5th East Yorkshire Regiment on 4th September 1915. I remember him telling us that it was a cyclist regiment. He was trained as a signaler and was in the trenches. He was eventually captured and spent some time as a prisoner of war. He wrote a diary of his experiences in the war and I will be publishing it as a kindle book on Amazon.
One story he loved to tell us was that when he joined up he lied about his age and that of his brother Ken who was even younger than he was.
He was blessed to make it through the war, as did his brother Ken. After the war his father Allison Blair Wilson - who was a Lloyds shipping surveyor decided to take the whole family out to Africa to what is now Zimbabwe.
Some eighty seven years after Allison Douglas Wilson sailed for Africa, his descendants - son Frank Allison Wilson and family, made the move back to England completing the circle again.
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