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Sgt George Samuel Cowley
British Army 9th (County of London) Battalion London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)
from:London
This is a transcript of a booklet sent to me by my grandfather when I first left home for work. It describes his whole life including his time during WW1. I have included everything as I think it gives a feel for the times and his life.
The original notes are written in an exercise book obtained from his small shop that he and Nan had in Edmonton, North London (it was just like Albert Arkwright's shop in Open All Hours!). I am fortunate that copies of his war records survived in the National Archives confirming his stories. He was lucky to survive the war - despite being wounded twice, and died in 1977. I have added a couple of explanatory notes where applicable. I hope that you find the attached of interest.
July 6th 1970
Dear Andrew,
I thought perhaps you might be interested to read about your GranPop’s early life and onwards:
I was born in London 1892. My father died when I was 12 months old. I lived in Macklin Street, Drury Lane. At the corner of Drury Lane & Macklin Street was the first little grocery shop of Sainsbury’s which today has grown into a 20 million pound company.
When my father died, he left my Mum all on her own with four children (two boys and two girls) to bring up; we were hard up.
My first memory was when I was about 3 years old, being taken to a Mothers’ Meeting to Southend and taken on a boat and hearing them singing hymns. My next fascinating memory was when I was 4 years old and being taken to St James Park to see Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Parade (Tuesday, 22 June 1987 – see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17368499) in the park opposite the Horse Guards Parade Barracks.
At that same time, which nobody knows about today, opposite the Horse Guards Parade in the park, was a small wooden refreshment shed where you could buy drinks and glasses of milk. The milk was drawn direct from cows, which were kept in the back of the shed, so you had a good drink of germs and viruses all mixed together.
Well, as I have said my Mum was very hard up for money and it was a great worry for her to pay the rent, feed and clothe the four of us and keep the home going. So one day she applied to the Council for relief. I was about 6 years old at the time, and I remember a big tall man coming and almost shouting at Mum and saying “Are you starving?” “No not yet”, said Mum. The man then started looking round the rooms and said “sell all this furniture and you will have enough to live on”. This of course Mum would not do and was too proud to go begging to this sort of person.
However, a local Vicar at the Parish Church, found a job for her in the London Government Offices of the Inland Revenue in the City of London, near St Paul’s Cathedral. Her job was to scrub and clean the floors and offices at 6am every morning. This meant she had to be up at 5am sharp to get to the City of London by 6am and sign on. This was in all weathers, rain, snow, frost etc. This was damned hard work for Mum. No cleaning gadgets in those days, but just down on your knees and get on with it. We managed fairly well but it was hard work so we all had to help and pull our weight.
About 2 years later one of my sisters (Violet, about 10 years old) died of poisoning through eating salmon or ice cream; the doctors did not know which. Violet was my Mum’s favourite child and it was months before she could get over it.
I was now eight years old and was up with the top boys at school. Although this was a very old school, we had some distinguished teachers and a very fine and clever old Head Master who was a A.L.P., F.E.I.B, M.A. and etc etc. The discipline was also very strict and because I was sort of happy-go-lucky, meant I soon had to get used to the cane pretty frequently even up till I was about 13 years old. Also every morning, the school hall book was shut on the dot of 9am and if you were not inside for prayers you were locked outside till they were over and then the Head Master would open the door with cane in hand and all those late outside would get the stick. I often used to smile to myself when I stretched out my hand, as he would say to me “you know sonny it hurts me more than it does you”. I was also then the tallest boy in the school, about 5ft 7”, so it amused me when one of our lady teachers, who was very small , about 5ft called me out for the cane and said “the next time I have to call you out I will knock you down”.
I did very well at practically everything at school except for geometry which I hated. I was captain of soccer, vice captain of cricket, top of swimming, long distance running and walking. But my greatest joy was and always has been music. My father, before he died, was soloist at the Northampton Parish Church. Music has always run in the Cowleys for generations. Well I remember, even as a little child, listening to my mum singing. She also belonged to a Choral Society and had a most beautiful voice.
Now I was eight when I had an offer to join the Royal Choir of King Charles 2nd, London West Central Royal Parish Church (There were about 60 men and boys.) We boys all had to wear Eton suits with striped trousers and red tassled mortar-board hats: our cassocks also were a royal red colour. This, was at that time a very rich Church, (I am sorry to say it is a very poor Church now) when I joined the boys’ choir and the boys were paid 5/- a quarter; a lot of money it was in those days. You then advanced and the top boy would be paid £2 per quarter. But it was damned hard work with strict discipline. We had to have three practices of 2 hours on three nights and one practice on two and half hours with the master each week. We also had to attend three services on Sundays – and sometimes four.
But we had the finest choir master and musician in London; he also was editor of London’s ‘Music Magazine’ as well as being a composer of music. Also, our Rector was Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, so you can guess we had the finest music in London. Our Church was always full of people, both the ground floor and the galleries; also our organ was the finest in London.
Well, after studying and singing hard, I made the grade and was top boy at the age of 12 at £2 a qtr. This money helped mum, but it was not all honey. The artful way the choir fund used to get some of its money back from me was as follows:
As I said before, strict discipline and I did not always agree as I was generally always up to some lark or another. Some of my money was paid back as follows:
- 1/- fine for smoking cigarettes
- 1/- fine for pulling church bell
- 1/- fine for singing out of tune
- 1/- fine for making a noise outside of Church
- 1/- fine for pulling red tassles out of boys hat (see later)
- 1/- fine for being late etc etc.
…and that was how some of my fortune went.
At the age of 12, I sang all the solos myself with combined choir in the oratories of Handel’s Messiah, Haydon’s Creation, Stainer’s Crucifiction, Mendlesohn, Mozart, Gounod, Bach, etc etc. I do not like boasting, but I really did have a beautiful voice and strong voice which you had to have to be heard on top of the combined choir.
The most miserable weeks of my life were when I had just turned 14 years old and my treble voice broke. I felt absolutely lost and did not know what to do, my glorious voice had gone and I felt weak, but I am not ashamed to say I did cry. However, time has its compensations, about 8 weeks afterwards, my alto voice started and once again I was singing lovely solos in alto. Strangely, this only lasted a few years and my voice went right down to bass and I became bass soloist in the choir. I also sang bass songs outside at different concerts songs such as (Drake goes West, Glorious Devon, Boys of the Old Brigade, Asleep in the Deep. Sergeant of the Lines.
My name would be on boards all round the parish as it did when I used to go out singing as a boy (Master Cowley from etc will sing…) and then afterwards (Mr Cowley from etc will sing ..) It really was a beautiful life then.
Back to real life again:
Being 14, I left school to look for a job to get some money to help Mum keep the home going, as she still had to go to the city to scrub the offices and be there at 6am. I was introduced by the Parish Priest to a firm of jewellers at 14. The worst part was I had to live in and sleep there and at that age 14, as you partly know, it is a big break having to leave home. The only consolation was my fave shop was not very far from home, being then in Oxford Street where Selfridges now stands on the same spot.
My hours of work were 8am till 8pm everyday, except Sundays. 72 hours a week, as well as not being able to join in any kind of sports etc.
I began to take a great interest in my work as a jeweller and was with their firm for nearly eight years. During these eight years, I met at Church my life long sweetheart, your Nan. As I had Sunday afternoons off, your Nan and I would go out walking and courting and as both of us were fit and strong, would sometimes walk about 10 to 14 miles, nearly always starting from the top of Highgate Hill, right then across Highgate, Primrose Hill, Hampstead, Golders Green, right on to Hendon near where Aunt Fan now lives, but in those days there were no roads across this way, only lovely lanes and green fields.
However, back to earth and reality:
My second struggle to live was now about to commence – 1914 had come and war against Germany started. The Greatest War the world had ever known. After keeping on reading the horrible things about the Germans, I made up my mind to join the army in 1914, so I had to give my governor a month’s notice and he called me a bloody fool for joining up.
In those days I was fairly well off, getting £3 each week, which was about 20/- (20 shillings = £1) above a skilled mans wages. I was also getting board and lodging free, which made it roughly worth about £4.10.00 a week.
However, my mind was made up and I joined the Queen Victoria Rifles at their H.Q. in Davies Street, Oxford Street, London, near Bond Street and you had to be fit; no-one with eyeglasses etc. were accepted and there was a strict body examination. Also, our regulation marching was 180 steps to the minute and we had route marches up to 20 miles with full packs and rifle and ammunition, totalling about 40lbs dead weight.
However, I joined up the West End H.Q. Davies Street. It was very laughable, they rigged me out in uniform etc. and put all my clothes in a large army kit bag, I put the kit bag over my shoulder and marched down Davies Street towards Oxford Street like a true soldier, I thought. At Oxford Street, I wanted to catch a bus on the other side. I got to the middle of Oxford Street when ‘Bang’, I dropped the kit bag off my shoulder and scattered all my civvy clothes amongst all the traffic. Did I swear to myself, all the civvies were smiling at me and I thought this is a damned good start. However, I got my civvies (clothes) home to Mum and she had a little weep.
However, we went back each day to H.Q. The only training ground left for us, the Queen Victoria’s, was in Hyde Park, where we used to drill - square bashing and marching etc. This lasted a few weeks and my company were then sent down to the south coast of England to do rifle shooting, bayonet fighting and trench jumping. I was good at shooting even up to about 800 yards. I had marvellous eyesight in those days.
To continue:
After a few weeks we were given two days last leave in London before being sent to France.
It was very sad for my mother and my sweet heart, your Nan. However, it had to be. In a few days, after I had got back to my regiment, one dark night we were shipped across to France in a naval warship. In France, also in the dark, we were put on a train, which moved slowly up north to Ypres, which then was part of the British Army H.Q. We got out of the train and were marched in the dark to Army H.Q near front line trenches. Our regiment was given orders to take supplies etc. to the regular army at the front. As we marched towards the front, we heard the guns blazing away like Hell, but it was nothing like it was going to be. A lot of our chaps had never even heard a gun before.
When we got to the front with our supplies for the regulars, we were given important jobs to do. One of my first jobs was to crawl out at night in front of all our trenches and mend a lot of broken barbwire barricades and also take out new barbwire for defences. These jobs weren’t too bad as long as you did not make the slightest noise; if you did, ‘Zim’, a snipers bullet would come whizzing across. Also, how I have cursed on a dark night outside the trenches, when all of a sudden the moonshine would burst through and light up the whole front of the trenches. This was very peculiar as the blaze and colour of the light also seemed to camouflage you as long as you kept perfectly still. But if you moved, you were seen at once and you had it.
And now about the War:
The British Army at this time were getting a pretty bad beating owing to the huge, tremendous numbers of the Germans against our small army.
My regiment, Queen Victoria’s, helped in different skirmishes and also kept a strong hold on reserve trenches, but were mixed up in a sudden advance by the Germans on a commanding hill called Hill 60. It was there the Queen Vic Rifles were the first of all Territorials to win the first V.C., which was won by an Officer of the Queen Victoria’s. (Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley)
The war proceeded slowly and we seemed to be always going backward right to the end of 1915. Of course by now I was used to shell fire, whistling bullets, the sight and awful smell of dead bodies and, if it poured with rain, your clothes simply damp on you. As I have just said we seemed to be going backwards and it seemed at the end of 1915 both armies seemed to have had enough and both determined to dig themselves in big deep trenches facing each other. It was about this time the storms and thick mud started and long planks of wood were thrown on the bottom of the trenches to stop you from being stuck in the bottom of the trench. It was about this time I was promoted in the field to the rank of Corporal in charge of the Bombers. At this time, both armies could not go far as the land nearly all round was one vast sea of mud and dirt. It was now just before Xmas, 1915. I lost my pal Herb, a sergeant about 6ft odd tall and big. As I have said, just before Xmas, my company was ordered to go at night and relieve the company in the trenches. When we arrived we put our men in the dugouts and others on the trench lookouts. After seeing the men into their proper positions, my pal the Sergeant and I went along to find a dugout to sleep in. We always used to sleep together. This night we could only find a very little dugout, which would not hold two and my pal said “you go along and sleep with the boys and I can just get inside this dugout”. I said “Alright Herb” and went along about 200 yards when bang came a shell right in my pal’s dugout and killed him instantly. It was very sad to me as we had been together for a long time.
The next episode was just after Xmas, about the beginning of 1916, (January). I felt extra thirsty one morning and said to two chaps who were with me in that part of the trench, “I am going to drum up a can of tea”. They said “fine”. I found some old bits of wood and lighted them; they (the wood) being a bit damp began to smoke and in a second ‘bang’, over came a trench mortar shell and dropped right in the middle of the three of us. It knocked the other two right out and I was lucky to escape with my arm torn by a piece of the shell. I was sent to base hospital for a few weeks and then back again to the Queen Vic’s. About Feb 1916, both armies now began to plan for the Great Offensive to end this war of all wars. About March the weather got bad and I can remember lying in the snow in an advanced listening post on my birthday, April 5th 1916… in the snow! It was hardly ever heard of to have snow in April, especially in France. However, a few weeks later it had all gone and the really nice weather started. About the end of May, our army gradually started to get ready; so did the Germans. We started at night digging advance trenches and often got a good shelling from the Germans who gave us a good hiding. The day was fixed by our army for the Great Advance, which was supposed to be a secret, it was the 1st of July 1916. This was the Greatest Battle the World has ever known, the Battle of the Somme.
The 1st of July, I remember as the most beautiful summer’s morning, about 5am larks were singing high up in the sky and all the birds were singing. Then about 5.30am truly all hell was let loose as a thousand guns opened fire and hundreds of machine guns and trench mortars and the English Army's advance to hell began.
My Regiment, the Queen Vics, went forward over the top, (At Gommecourt) our regimental strength over 800 strong. We took the first German trench, but the Germans had been ready for us for months and nearly all their men were in the reserve trenches at the back and we were mown down by machine guns. At the end of which the next morning, myself and 122 others answered a roll call out of over 800 men. The same thing had happened to London Regiments nearly all along the length of the advance; the casualties killed and wounded amounted to 10’s of thousands. (Actually 57240 British and 7000 French) This carnage and slaughter went on for a few weeks and men were being used simply as cannon fodder, till some one in Parliament put a stop to it and things quietened down a bit till the bright boys in the army H.Q. down White Hall began to think up another advance in 1917.
The 1917 advance was beginning to begin very slowly about March. One morning my company of Queen Vic’s were roughly awakened about 4.30 and told to get ready to advance over the top about 5am. In these mornings, every day all through the winter till about now (March) every man was given a ration of rum. It was also my job to give each man a ration in his mug. This morning, the jar of rum arrived late and I had not got time to dish it out as the advance was commencing, so my pal and I went over the top carrying the jar of rum between us ready to fight anybody and everybody. But alas, I only got three quarters of the way across through a hail of machine gun bullets and was shot through the hip and fell down a shell hole, which was lucky for me as nearly all my men must have been knocked out. The shell hole saved my life as every time I moved, a sniper whizzed a bullet across the top of my head. I lay in that shell hole all day from about 6am till about 8.30pm at night not daring to move and then as darkness began, I crawled slowly and painfully back towards the English trenches… also having the chance of being shot through being mistaken for a German. However, I was lucky in being able to shout to them I was one of the Queen Victoria’s. I was taken to casualty station and then put on a train and shipped on to a hospital ship bound for London, England.
Oh the joy of Nan coming to the hospital to see me and the lovely luxury once more of lying in a real bed with white sheets and blankets.
After a few months my leg got better and I was posted back to my Regiment, the Queen Vic’s at the training H.Q. at Deepcut Barracks at Black Down near Farnborough, Hants.
When I arrived there I was made Sergeant bombing instructor. This was not a bad job but it had its hazards. For instance, a lot of new recruits were absolutely nervous once they held a live bomb (Grenade) in their hands, the fuse only lasted 5 seconds once the pin had been pulled out and I had to watch them like a hawk to make sure they were pulling the pin properly and throwing the bomb high enough and far enough over the top of the trench. Another tricky job I had to do: sometimes when the bomb was a dud bomb had not gone off, I had to go out afterwards and find the bomb and gently diffuse it and make it safe, which was not a nice job.
However, at last came 11am, 11th November 1918 – Armistice and my bombing job was finished and I was put Sergeant in charge of the demobilization office to write out the list of mens’ names to leave the army and you can bet I put my name near the top of the list. I was demobbed in February 1919 and got married on my birthday, 5th April 1919. And now the real struggle to live was to begin. I went round to my old firm and the old governor had the cheek to tell me he could not help me as I had been away a long time. So then began an awful nearly 6 years on the dole and living by doing all sorts of odd jobs like thousands of other ex-soldiers like myself who were told England had been made a place for heroes to live in… and by God you had to be a hero to keep living.
, all things have an end and I was given a job in a Bond Street Jewellers and life began again. Your dad was then born in December 1925 and (Uncle) Ken in January 1928. All went well till 1932 when the Great World Slump started in America and England and everybody began to be out of work through loss of trade and government money. I, being the last of the firm’s employees, had to be the first discharged and was back again on the dole with two children to keep. It was a good job Nan was doing part time work and earning money to help. After weeks on the dole, a silver lining appeared through our dark clouds and Nan’s mother and her four sisters and all (our) relatives put money together to help us buy the little shop in Edmonton (66 Lawrence Road), which we did in June 1932. From then onwards both Nan and I worked damned hard to make our little business pay.
We opened sharp at 7am every morning till 12pm at night, Sundays as well as everyday included. After a few months, as there was then not a lot of opposition, the little business began to pay well and we were well known round all the neighbourhoods and people were heard saying can’t you buy it, you go to Mr & Mrs Cowley’s shop, you can buy it there, and they did get it. So every time we went out we were known and liked everywhere with children and grown-ups. But alas, once again in 1941 while the second war was on, our good fortune and luck vanished again through a fault in the electric wiring catching alight and setting fire to house and shop. It was a good job a noise awoke Nan about 2am on a Sunday morning and we just got out safely in our bedclothes as the flames were spreading everywhere. Our cat was burnt to death and our dog was missing 2 or 3 days before he came back. The worst loss was through not being properly insured. We lost nearly £1,000 pounds as well as clothing and etc.
Now began again the struggle from scratch to keep living and paying expenses etc. However, very slowly with hard work and little profit we began to get on our feet again and after a few more years began gradually to make the business going again up to the 1960’s; and then came bad luck again as the great big multiple and chain stores started opening everywhere and I simply could not compete against them as they were selling all goods miles below the wholesale price I had to pay for them, so I could not blame any of my customers buying their goods at those shops instead of mine as they could buy them about a third less money to what I could sell them. So I started losing money again and could only keep open by selling little odds and ends that other shops did not sell and lastly came the greatest blow of all when we were told by the Borough Council our house was on the list to be pulled down under the New Land Development Scheme. (Their house was demolished to make a park) This really was the end and our greatest worry as we both then were getting old and in our 70’s. However, God has been good to us all our lives and the Town Council bought our shop and house and land and the money just about paid for our new house with just a little over but not much to live on.
Well Andrew, that’s about the lot and if you want three little mottos to live on, here they are:
.
- No 1. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he also shall reap.
- No 2. Nil Desparandem.
- And ... (I think the best of the lot) No 3. Amor Vincet Omnia
