7303: George Atherton

My father's father, George Atherton.

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.

The family lived in Oldham and nearly all of them worked in the mills.

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.

He was at Neuve Chapelle and there seems to have been an incident with a shell landing in his trench, he was partially buried.

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.

There is a pic of him whilst convalescing. He looks just like my Dad.