I may be linked to the Ibstock war memorial, but essentially I am the outsider who is looking in. Perhaps it is an impertinence to say anything at all about these men, and certainly I am not able to tap into local knowledge like those in the community might. So I run the risk of giving an incomplete picture.

For a small village (around 5,000 souls in 1915) built on coal, perhaps it's no exaggeration to say everyone knew everyone else: they had grown up together, worked together and had been tied by marriage as friends then became family. A process that continued through the war years and even after as those recently widowed remarried, as in the case of George Chamberlain's widow, Phyllis, who married into the Barrs family in the spring of 1919.

I'm grateful for GWF member Llew who has brought two books to my attention, both written by local man Michael Kendrick.

This title contains a short chapter on the tunnellers of 1914-1918 and gives further insight into the relationships between Ibstock tunnellers, George Chamberlain, Robert Ashby and William Barrs.

Having read George Chamberlain's DCM citation, I had previously written ”Was this the instinctive actions of a man who had spent his working life in the pits? We can only speculate how often George had come to the aid of a fellow miner in the Colliery back home”. This was not far from the truth as Kendrick's book tells us that “Sapper George Miller Chamberlain of Ibstock was a former miner at Nailstone Colliery, and member of the colliery rescue party”. Kendrick adds that Sapper Robert Ashby, a good friend of the aforementioned was killed whilst attempting to save the lives of trapped comrades deep underground. Sapper W. Barrs, also of Ibstock, wrote to Robert Ashby's wife explaining that a mine explosion buried them both, but he managed to escape whereas Robert died a brave man on the 21st December 1915.

This last information made me look at Sapper Barrs service record again and I released I had missed a very faint entry about this return to to duty in June and re-assigment to 178th COy. I've corrected my previous blog entry.

It is in fact, Sapper William Barrs, AKA James W Barrs, who Phyllis marries in 1919.

Thanks again to Llew for the information about this book.