207149 Private George Gough British Army 14th Btn Durham Light Infantry from:Ferryhill, County Durham (d.19th Dec 1915) My grandfather Samuel’s older brother, George Gough became Private 17868, of 14th Battalion Durham Light Infantry in the First World War. George was one of those who died after the gas attack on the trenches on Sunday 19th December 1915, near Ieper (Ypres), Belgium. He is buried in Potijze Burial Ground Cemetery, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. Grave reference V 19.
I had the privilege of visiting the cemetery in August 1998 where I paid my respects to a Great Uncle that, until a few months earlier, I never knew existed. The cemetery is neat and rectangular with a wall surrounding it and an entrance gate. Near the entrance to the graveyard is a small cupboard in the wall. In it is lodged the register of the graves for this particular cemetery. There is also a plan of the graves. I looked at this register. The book was neat and not finger marked or dog-eared. It might have been drawn from a Library shelf and not from a cupboard in a wall in the middle of a village. I think that if this cupboard in this foreign field had been in England, the door would have been wrenched off, the gates nicked and “Skinsâ€, “Col Luvs Sue†or “Man. Utd†sprayed all over the walls. The notion of a register so freely available in England seems nonsense. However for all the dead who lay there and the filthy, futile deaths they died, it was still hard to suppress a twinge of imperial pride and think how brave Great Uncle George had been. I had never known he existed. I can’t remember anyone mentioning his name. There was no photograph and apart from my brother Alan, I don’t think anyone else has visited his grave. It was only through conversation with my brother Alan that I found out about him and War Grave. He had found out about it from my mother when he was about to go on holiday to Holland and Belgium. My mother had never spoken to me about George at all. I don’t know why because as the story further unfolded my grandfather had been the last of the family to see him alive. He had gone down to Ferryhill Railway Station to wave goodbye to him. Also by a strange twist of fate George’s Sergeant on that fateful day, eventually turned out to be my dad’s sister Lily’s husband Joe Handy’s, Aunt Elizabeth (Bessie) Handy’s father Edward(Ted) Handy, if that makes any sense. When my dad was courting my mother they were visiting the Handys and Ted asked my mother if she was any relation to George Gough. When she said yes the story came out of the gas attack. The soldiers being ordered to put on their gas masks. These were very primitive affairs and had not really been tried and tested. When some of the younger soldiers began to scream that theirs were not working, George, being much older at 35 years, apparently exchanged his mask with a teenage soldier, who was in trouble. Presumably this exchanged mask did not work as he died of gas poisoning. This is the story that Ted Handy told my mother. It made me feel very proud to stand in front of the gravestone and pay my respects that day.
|