58541: Letter from Private William George Baskerville "Letter home from training camp"

Aged approx 17/18 he enlisted in the South Lancs Regiment.

Letter home written while in training at Tunbridge Wells prior to service in Belgium and France during which he was twice wounded, once near the heart (inoperable) and after return to his unit was wounded in the shoulder. He was treated at hospitals in Tunbridge Wells and Oswestry. I believe he was invalided out of the army.

When he returned to civilian life he resumed working for his father as a butcher. He married Gertrude Mitchell (of Wigan) in the 1920's and they had three children.

By the beginning of the second world war he had enrolled as a Special Policeman and when war broke out in September 1939 I, a child of 9, helped him to distribute gas masks in the Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows area of Lancashire.

In his letter he refers to digging trenches in Kent in anticipation of a German invasion and mentions a German attack on our fleet and his disappointment in not getting into action to defend the coast.