Post-war reunions Lancashire Fusiliers

[Adnepos]

One of my great grandfathers, 282312 Pte Walter Samms HARTLEY was in 2/7th then 10th Lancashire Fusiliers .

My mum wonders where he disappeared to, regularly, every Spring, not telling anybody where he was going/had gone. She suspects that he went to Bury for a reunion. Could this be true?

[Loader]

Possibly of course. I've read of a case in the US where every yr on a certain wk 5 men left their homes & families & traveled to a far city. Their families knew all about it & approved heartily. These men visited the widow of the man who had saved their ilves in WW2 & died doing it. They used that wk to make sure she was ok, her finances inorder , repairs to home & all & helped her in all ways possible. This to look after her & repay him in some small way for saving them. Time has taken all now but one man, he still visits her grave each yr..

Maybe your GGF had friends to visit or look after too even if not a formal reunion.

[Sepoy]

He may well have gone to attend the Gallipoli Commemorations held at Bury around the 25th April. (It is still held!)

This is a major commemoration for the Lancashire Fusiliers, who won 6 Victoria Crosses before breakfast, landing at W Beach, Gallipoli on 25th April, 1915.

The 2/7th and 10th Battalions did not serve at Gallipoli, but he may have gone for the event to have a few beers with his old mates.

Sepoy

[Adnepos]

Thanks, Sepoy

It was this year's Gallipoli get-together that prompted my mum asking where he might have gone because he disappeared every year at about this time. As you mention, he would not have been in Gallipoli, which is why I had some doubt. But as you mention, these get-togethers were and remain very important to the Fusiliers, so I suppose those on the Western Front would have joined in.

'Thank you' for confirming her suspicion -she will be pleased that I was wrong and she will be very smug!