Walter S. MARGRETT, his sad memoirs of two World Wars. (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, April 06, 2013, 02:41 (4251 days ago) @ Jefff

Some more searching has unearthed this fascinating and wellwritten article from the Forest Review paper, "A family scarred by war", published Wednesday 28 September 2011.

This detailed account by Walter's daughter Freda tells the truly awful story in graphic detail of brave Walter's experiences in the trenches of WW1. It shows that despite eventually returning home alive supposedly the "conquering hero", like so many of those who were lucky enough to avoid being killed outright his life was changed forever, he never recovered from his physical scars on top of his mental ones. Altho wounds could be treated using the very effective new antiseptics there were no "miracle" antibiotics, nevermind plastic surgery or NHS in those days. So many thousands had wounds which would never heal over and would require constant cleaning & redressing to prevent infection - in some cases a slow death possibly worse than that on the battlefield....
The article also describes the WW2 service of not only his sons but his daughters too, how awful those days must have been for Walter, Lydia and Freda too, these experiences shaped her life as she became a nurse.

A recommended read for which Freda and the Review should be very proud, and a stark reminder of why we must never forget those who fought and what they fought for.

http://www.forest-and-wye-today.co.uk/featuresdetail.cfm?id=4156