Von Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 Good morning, After years of not knowing much about my Grandfather and especially not his war story a few months ago this forum openned up a window of him to the point I now know pretty much exactly where he was down to grid references and dates, camps and what he was doing - for a private I am actually overwhelmed to have so much information. I now want to go through all that I have and set about writing his war story down, not just about where he was but to try to set it into the context of the war. This I know will have been done before many times but with me not being all all the literary type (and having so much to learn about WW1) I wondered if there are some good examples out there to inspire me into how I might do this effectively. Best wishes, Von Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxD Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 By coincidence, a forum member just today linked to his web site which looks pretty impressive. It is on the first post here: Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Von Posted 30 June , 2020 Author Share Posted 30 June , 2020 29 minutes ago, MaxD said: By coincidence, a forum member just today linked to his web site which looks pretty impressive. It is on the first post here: That is good, I wish I had more photos. I have some work to do to map out his journey too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxD Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 The forum will help with maps if necessary. Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knotty Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 Hi Max I think that Simon has a good grasp of the available maps, he has put a link on his post to his very comprehensive website dedicated to his Great Grandfathers war story, with plenty of maps showing his whereabouts on the front. It is definitely worth a look and read. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxD Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 Yes John that is the link and web site I felt that Von would find inspiration from. Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Cains Posted 30 June , 2020 Share Posted 30 June , 2020 Thanks for the compliments everyone ! I was lucky enough to get some good family photos handed down, but no letters or other objects such as medals etc. I had some good help from people on the GWF back in 2014 including Andy Morris although he seems to have disappeared. I don't know if you followed the links through to my g-grandfather's brother http://www.cains.myzen.co.uk/john daly.htm and a general introduction to the family http://www.cains.myzen.co.uk/daly intro.htm Now I am retired I should try to learn some website design to tidy everything up, this is all done just using a very old app called "front page express". Can anyone recommend good but simple software to make a website. Thanks very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Von Posted 5 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 5 July , 2020 Thank you All, Apologies for my protracted response - I didn't get any notifications and didn't think I had any replies. I am having great fun with trying out the maps and working out where he was. I have a year and half of his story to work out and I am only on day 1 so far :-). I could be a while with this. I have got hold of the book The Gordon Highlanders in the First World War (Falls, 1958) which has loads of context for me to work from. I am intrigued that the book mentions that the 9th Gordons held a guard of Honour for King George V on 6th December 1918 - but no mention of it in the war diary. I have however found a IWM film online of the week long visit that has a short segment in that may be some of the Gordons - but they were not parading or guarding - more celebrating. I am finding it all very interesting and i will be back for more advice. Probably with the maps a bit because they are a little tricky to locate the correct map. Thank you all again, Von Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Cains Posted 5 July , 2020 Share Posted 5 July , 2020 Hi, I don't know if you have seen the free collection of WW1 trench maps kindly supplied by the National Library of Scotland. https://maps.nls.uk/ww1/trenches/index.html The other maps on my website came from various books, eg books on specific battles, even a book about the history of the whole 3rd division had a good map of the attack on Arras. And any museums for your regiments may have useful records, photographs etc, probably have to wait a bit longer for lockdown to be lifted more. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Von Posted 5 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 5 July , 2020 24 minutes ago, Simon Cains said: Hi, I don't know if you have seen the free collection of WW1 trench maps kindly supplied by the National Library of Scotland. https://maps.nls.uk/ww1/trenches/index.html The other maps on my website came from various books, eg books on specific battles, even a book about the history of the whole 3rd division had a good map of the attack on Arras. And any museums for your regiments may have useful records, photographs etc, probably have to wait a bit longer for lockdown to be lifted more. Good luck. Oh that's great, Thank you. I have a link to some other maps but they are not specifically trenches. There is so much information out there if you know where to find it. I'm fascinated that we have gone from knowing nothing about William other than he wore a kilt and could play the bagpipes to being able to work out which trench he was repairing on a specific day during the war. I will have a good look through what you have done too to get more ideas. I want to bring some sort of life to his story. 1st of all though I just need to get as much info as I can. Thank you Best wishes Von Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Cains Posted 5 July , 2020 Share Posted 5 July , 2020 Hi, I should say I saw the National Library of Scotland link and demonstrated on a recording of the first of the podcasts shown by the CWGC recently during lockdown. The other podcasts also look interesting. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=925043401243344&external_log_id=ba1a323e30ece79e3524391c1121d82d 9th April CWGC live : The Somme https://www.facebook.com/search/videos/?q=cwgc&epa=SERP_TAB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Von Posted 5 July , 2020 Author Share Posted 5 July , 2020 Thank you, I will take a look. The more info the better. 😊 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now