Submitted by Paul Elliott.
My maternal grandfather, Edwin Scriminger, was born in 1892 and worked as a bricklayer living in the Leeds suburb of Meanwood. He joined the West Yorkshire Regiment in early 1915 and went to France. He became a Lewis gunner and, unfortunately, in 1916, a casualty, when he was hit in the lung by a bullet. Invalided from the front line to a casualty clearing station, he was sent to hospitals in Colchester and Stourbridge.
On his eventual recovery he was sent to the Northumberland Fusiliers where he became a mess servant. In 1918 he was transferred to the Durham Light Infantry and sent to Archangel on the North Russia expedition. Like the majority of those sent to Russia he was not considered physically fit enough to be sent back to France. The DLI were used principally for guard duties, although some of his notes describe the subduing of a mutiny by Croat troops.
After demobilisation in 1919 he returned to the building industry, eventually becoming a manager in a house building company. He died of cancer in 1972, aged 81.
His service numbers were:
24904 West Yorkshire Regiment.
41631 Northumberland Fusiliers. 24th Batt.
78110 Durham Light Infantry. 2/7th Batt.
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Harry Binks
Story from Harry Binks, via Val Slater of Coverdale. Harry was named after his father, whose story is outlined below. My father, Harry Binks, was born at Highfield in Carlton on 11 September 1893, a short while before his twin brother Thomas. The 1901 Census recorded the family still at Highfield where my grandfather Thomas was farming, but shortly afterwards they moved to Lane House on the edge of the village. Harry went to Horsehouse school. In 1911 the family was living at Lilac Farm (House) – now Abbots Thorn – but Harry was not at home. He would have been working away as a farm labourer in Kettlewell; however he has not been found on the Census. On 11 December 1915 Harry enlisted at Leyburn. His address was Lilac House, Carlton and next of kin his mother Elizabeth Binks – his father having died in 1912. Harry’s occupation was farm hand. He was assigned to the Yorkshire Regiment – “The Green Howards” – and posted to France in October 1916, fighting at the Western Front until April 1917. Harry returned to France in September 1917 where the main focus was the Third Battle of Ypres, including the infamous Battle of Passchendaele. In December Harry was injured by gun shot wounds to his right thigh. After treatment he was deemed no longer physically fit for war service and discharged to the reserve in June 1918. At the end of the war Harry was in the Slough area where a number…
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Wilfred Carver
Submitted by Angie Atkinson. Wilfred Carver, Royal Marines Light Infantry (16955), was born in 1895. He died on the 26th of November 1914 while on the HMS Bulwark. He is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
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John M Osborne
John Malcolm Osborne, submitter Jackie Wilson’s father, was born on 14th October 1888 to Frederick Osborne and Lydia Lindridge in Goudhurst Kent, having 7 siblings. In 1911 he was living at home in Goudhurst, Kent working as a motor mechanic. During the First World War he joined the Royal Naval Air Service on the 22nd October 1915 with the service numbers of 208815 and F 8815, before the creation of the Royal Air Force by the merger of the RNAS and the Royal Flying Corps on 1 April 1918. His papers record that he was five feet seven and a half inches tall, had brown hair and grey eyes, with a fresh complexion. He was stationed at President II, a shore based depot at White City, London. When called to a Zeppelin crash site, John removed the propeller as a souvenir. At a later date the propeller was fashioned into a walking stick. A clock was also made from the remains of the propeller, owned by Jackie’s Godfather. John Osborne was transferred to the reserve in April 1919 and discharged April 1920. John married Florence Huddlestone in Shepherd’s Bush, London, 3rd March 1918. In the 1930s he lived in Hammersmith with his wife before they moved to Cambridge. He died on the 4th February 1953 at Chesterton Hospital, Cambridge, leaving effects of £224 14s 6d to his widow Florence Maud Osborne.