7303: George Atherton

<p dir="ltr">My father's father, George Atherton. </p> <p>He joined up within days of war breaking out at 27. He had been working in cotton mills since he was 12. He was one of 9 children, and his mother was widowed when most of them were very young. </p> <p>The family lived in Oldham and nearly all of them worked in the mills.</p> <p>He got to France in May 1915 and was home again by September, having managed to get a 'blighty' wound, sufficiently severe to get him out of further service but not bad enough to ruin his life. </p> <p>He was at Neuve Chapelle and there seems to have been an incident with a shell landing in his trench, he was partially buried. </p> <p>The casualty tags shows him going to a casualty clearing station, he then went home to convalesce and there are pics of him in a great house which has been turned into a convalescent home/hospital but we don't know where that was.</p> <p>There is a pic of him whilst convalescing. He looks just like my Dad.</p>