Feature
| NORTH YORKSHIRE |  | | | CLEVELAND | | | | COUNTY DURHAM | |
|
|
|
Unfolding the story of a young soldier’s life and family history
 |
| INTIMATE ACCOUNT: Susan Laffey with her book Jack Garbutt: The Bilsdale Bombardier |
FOR many young men like
John William Garbutt, the
lure of a great adventure -
joining the Army to fight
for king and country in a foreign
land - at first enticed and then engulfed
them.
Born in 1896, Jack, as he was
known, was one of 12 children
born to Isaac and Mary Emma
Garbutt at Whingroves Farm in
Bilsdale.
His great-niece, Sue Laffey, has
called him the Bilsdale Bombardier,
and her book of the same
name at first unfolds his family
history and then accompanies
him through rudimentary schooling,
work as an agricultural
labourer, a brief time as a policeman,
and then into his great adventure
when he volunteered to
join the Army and fought in
France and Belgium until his
death in action in 1918.
The book will be of interest to war
historians as a substantial record
from the First World War. It is a
fascinating account, with the personal
details of one particular soldier
interwoven with the meticulously
detailed official war diaries
of his brigade and photographs
from the Imperial War Museum.
It is also a well-presented, compulsive
read for local family historians,
being an intimate account
of the life and family of one young
man, brought vividly to life by
family details and photographs,
records of his school and more
than 50 of his personal letters,
along with those written to him by
family and friends.
That so many personal letters
have survived for the tale to be
told shows the strength of the Garbutt
family ties.
Mrs Laffey, born and brought up
in County Durham and now
deputy headteacher of a large secondary
school in Staffordshire,
first presented a talk on the Garbutts
of Whingroves to a very large
audience of Garbutt family relatives
and local historians at a
meeting organised by Bilsdale
Study Group at Chop Gate in October
2005.
She was encouraged and assisted
to undertake more research and
gather additional material, and
the result of her labours is a substantial,
well-crafted and presented
book in which Mrs Laffey
shows a lot of empathy with her
subject material of family history
and the war in France.
 |
| GREAT ADVENTURE: Jack Garbutt in his Army uniform |
She said: "The book has brought
our branch of the Garbutt family
closer together. Before I started,
many of Jack's 25 surviving
nephews and nieces had virtually
lost touch with each other.
"Once I started writing and wanted
to find out what had happened
to Jack's 11 siblings, my dad managed
to make contact with many
of his cousins, often speaking to
them for the first time.
"Then many of the cousins and
their families came to the launch
of the book in February, which
was a fantastic opportunity to
make contact. It's been suggested
that we hold another reunion in a
couple of years.
"As news of the book has spread,
other relatives have been in touch.
In fact, there is only one branch of
the family we have not been able
to find. If anyone can give us news
of Ernest (Net) Garbutt's daughters,
Eileen and Maureen, we
would love to hear from you.
"It is 90 years since Jack died, and
this year, on the anniversary of his
death - March 21 - I travelled to
France with my parents. We were
able to stand on the exact spot
where Jack's battery had their gun
position, and look over the fields
to the place where the ammunition
dump would have been.
"Those are the fields where Jack
died and where his body may still
be. It was an honour to be there
and lay a wreath by the plaque
commemorating his service. I
hope my book will ensure that
Jack Garbutt will never be forgotten."
Mrs Laffey said her next project
was to research the lives of the
other 13 men from Bilsdale who
died in the Great War.
She said: "Although this is unlikely
to lead to a book as big as The
Bilsdale Bombardier, I do think it
is right that the other men have
their story told alongside the story
of Uncle Jack.
"I have already started work and
have traced the service records of
several of the men. I would be delighted
to hear from any relatives
of the other 13 men."
Mrs Laffey can be contacted at
bilsdalebombardier@blueyonder.co.
uk.
● Jack Garbutt: The Bilsdale Bombardier,
ISBN 978-0-9556454-1-9,
is published by Waltersgill Photography
and Publishing, 17 Wrenbeck
Drive, Otley, West Yorkshire
LS21 2BP and is priced £9.99.
Contact Daniel Walters at waltersgill@
btinternet.com or telephone
01943-467041 or 07722-503549.
2:22pm Friday 9th May 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
