I don’t remember my grandfather, Joseph Farrow. He died shortly after I was born. Neither do we know much about him; family history was either taken for granted or simply not considered important in those days. Joe was to suffer, indirectly, the worst consequences of Spanish ’Flu, the great pandemic that swept the world in 1918 and which was a significant factor in bringing the Great War to an end.
During the ‘War to end all Wars’ he served with the Royal West Kent Regiment, colloquially The Buffs, on the Western Front, becoming a sergeant in charge of a stretcher party. Like many of his generation he rarely spoke of the war, so terrible was the experience, but we later came to learn of his capture and subsequent escape from prisoner of war camp to Switzerland, where he was interned for the remainder of the war.
With the end of the war he was, in due course, repatriated. On being discharged, he returned home to his family in Tysea Hill, Stapleford Abbotts, by walking from Romford Station – public transport was not readily available in November 1918. En route he took the opportunity to drop into the Royal Oak at Havering for a pint of beer, only to be greeted by Charlie Binder commiserating with his loss. Grandfather was somewhat bemused, until Charlie explained “Oh, didn’t you know? We buried your wife and daughter yesterday”. Unknown to Joe, his 37 year old wife, Jessie Ellen, and eighteen-month old daughter (also Jessie Ellen) had been carried off a few days earlier by Spanish ’Flu.
My father had a vivid recollection of that time. Laid low themselves with the illness, he and his brother Ernest (aged six and ten respectively) were lying upstairs in bed when the coffin momentarily came through their bedroom door as it was being manoeuvred downstairs. Mother and daughter were buried in St. Mary’s graveyard Stapleford Abbotts, together in the same coffin. Many years later I learned, from the late Jean Haylen, church warden of Lambourne church and into whose hands the funeral directors records passed, that the coffin was made of one-inch thick oak, a remarkable and expensive option of the day, though the family could not afford a grave memorial.
Finally, please note that another presentation on the evening, the story of the Welford family and Welford Dairies, has already appeared in the previous Newsletter.