Behind the Wire 1916

| January 20, 2018

16th Battalion C.E.F. Prisoners of War (Part 2) …the enemy opened a heavy bombing attack against the left flank. Sergeant Slessor was wounded and captured – he died three days afterwards. His post was overwhelmed. Only after hard fighting was this onslaught stopped and the block retaken. (Urquhart, The Sixteenth, page 183) See also Behind […]

MacKendricks and The Thistle

| December 14, 2017

The Christmas Card and the Table Imagine please, if you will, MacKendricks. Chuntering as he did in the sanctity of his space MacKendricks had outlived – all family, all friends. Each day a similar caned path to The Thistle where with pewter near to hand he sat at an edge-worn, darkened wise table carved deep […]

Piper J.C. Richardson VC Centennial Chilliwack, BC

| October 8, 2016

A Time to Reflect and be Reflective October 8, 2016 It is raining today, water hurtling down from a darkened sky. It is a time to reflect and be reflective, a time for a centennial eulogy that speaks to all of us this day…but what more can be said about this piper James that has […]

The Tin Hat on the Somme

| October 7, 2016

I Heard the Clang of a Bullet Some months prior to the attack on Regina Trench, 8 October 1916, Canadian troops were first issued with the steel helmet in the spring of 1916. Patented in London in 1915 by John Leopold Brodie of Buffalo, New York, the helmet came into general use when large quantities […]

16th Soldier Wounded on the Somme

| September 24, 2016

 I GOT HIT ON SEPTEMBER 24 Corporal Norman Caldwell (16th Battalion CEF) and his brother Harry Calldwell (67th Battalion CEF) were the nephews of Mr. L.A. Berkeley of Roccabella. A portion of Norman’s letter entitled, Brothers Have Seen Some Heavy Fighting  appeared in The Daily Colonist, 7 November  1916, page 10. “I got hit on […]