Finding Harry’s war grave

Keith and Roy Chadwick at the grave of Harry

FULFILLING an old promise led to an emotional journey to Belgium and France for one Oldham family.

Keith Chadwick, originally from Springhead, promised his grandmother Bertha that one day he would do what she had never been able to do — visit her husband’s war grave in France.

Now a pensioner himself, fulfilling that promise turned out to be an incredibly moving and rewarding experience when he recently visited the Normandy city of Rouen with his son Jason and brother, Roy, who lives in Moorside.

When Bertha married Harry Chadwick in 1909, she could never have imagined she was going to spend most of the next 60 years as a war widow.

Her husband, a cotton spinner from St Mary’s, died from his battle wounds in an Army hospital in 1917, aged 26, and she was left with very little except three boys under five and a bleak future.

After decades of silence, Keith finally told Jason of his vow to his beloved grandmother and with the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War imminent — and not being in the best of health — he decided it was time to fulfil the promise.

During their quest to find Keith and Roy’s grandfather’s grave the family visited the vast memorials of Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth war graves cemetery in the world, and the mighty Menin Gate where 54,000 missing men are listed.

“A drive through the lovely rolling farmland of Northern France took us past infamous battle sites like Loos and Vimy Ridge and countless cemeteries until we reached the Somme,” said Jason (45), a journalist, originally from Springhead and now living in Buxton.

“Here by the River Ancre were the featureless group of potato fields where Harry met his fate.”
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