The Life and Times of Edward James Sellwood

pigeon
TALES MY FATHER TOLD ME when I (Beryl Sawyer, Pigeon's mum)asked him “What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

Actually, my Dad loved to tell his many stories when we had guests to tea – we, the family would groan, but our guests would enjoy hearing them.

I never really heard my father complain, I think he must have been a fairly good natured soldier. He was underage when he signed up. Born in March, 1897, he was 17 in 1914.

He fought in Europe until he was wounded in the shoulder – a bullet went straight through. He was sent back to England to recuperate. When he was on the street in England strangers would come up to him and ask why he wasn’t at the front.

We have heard of the soldiers in the trenches on both sides stopping fighting on Christmas Day and taking part in a soccer game, resuming the war the next day. My Dad said that on Christmas Day where he was the men stopped the bloodshed, got out of the trenches and offered cigarettes to each other. The officers were angry because they felt this behaviour showed the enemy where the Allied trenches were.

Dad was passing the time chatting to a fellow soldier in the trench one day, he turned away for a minute and when he turned back he found that his companion had lost his head – shells came over all the time.

In war, there always seems to be stories about latrines. The conditions in the trenches were so terrible. The men were fighting, eating, sleeping, if they could, in the deep mud in the trench. Dad told of one man who went to the latrine (which was a deep hole with a plank across) when a shell came over and the poor man went over into the hole, backwards.

He and some others were on patrol at night, bringing up supplies on mules. Suddenly, the animals stopped and could not be persuaded to budge. When the men checked they found their way forward had been booby trapped.
So, the mules saved their lives.

The only other story I remember is when Dad returned to the front, but this time in Salonika, fighting the Turks.

I remember he said they used to go out on patrol near the Turkish lines at night. Feeling hungry one night and not daring to show a light, he felt for his canteen, opened it and ate the bread he had in there. He found it very tasty, quite salty. Later, when he was able to look into the canteen he found it full of ants.

Four years of war and that’s all the stories I remember.

My parents were married in 1921. Joan was born in 1922 and Teddy was born two years later. Both Mum and Dad worked in the hotels in Park Lane, the Grosvenor was one. Dad lost his job and was out of work for a long time. He came to Canada during the depression, probably in 1929. As he had been a seaman (merchant navy) he probably enlisted on a ship to Halifax, then jumped ship. He had many tales of his two years riding the rails across Canada, working at various stops, nearly freezing to death because of getting on the wrong part of the train. Reaching Vancouver and going to White Rock where he knew Jack and May were living. Getting halfway up their path and turning back as he was down and out and was too shy to go in to see them. He stowed away in Vancouver harbour, avoiding the harbour police, hid for two days on the boat, then worked his passage.

Even after returning to England, he was out of work for years. He was bitter about the depression, for, having fought for King and Country for four years, he was asking the question, “Who and what did we fight for? His answer was “to keep the privileged classes in their place of privilege!” Remember, he worked in the Park Lane hotels where only the rich and famous could stay and party. Everyone else worked hard and long and only just barely scraped by. There was no safety net.