76 years on.

 

Way back in the depths of lockdown one of the local golfclubs allowed people to roam freely across its course [in those days when the playing of golf was strictly verboten!]. E and I took full advantage....https://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.com/2021/02/on-golfcourse.html 

With the recent marking of Remembrance there was a post on FB that spoke of someone spotting a carved name on the pew in front of them and their upset at hearing the same name read out as one of the fallen only moments later. Suddenly that name became a real person. It reminded me of the piece of graffiti that E had spotted inside one of the wartime pillboxes. Beyond speculating that it was most probably one of the Canadian soldiers stationed near here and from the date on it 26th October 1945 likely to have been waiting to be sent home I didn't do much with it once a quick search failed to come with any matches to the name Gordon Bullock.

On a whim I decided to share my photo on one of our local history groups on Remembrance Sunday because I thought it would be of interest and now that the golfcourse is off bounds again [except to members] most people won't get the chance to see it for themselves. As I so often find with these things...once you take a step like this things take on a life of their own and your reward is that you come away having learnt more. One chap spotted that the surname was actually Bulloch and he forwarded it onto a Canadian geneaology site. 24 hours later we had a response and some of his distant family members were traced. I now know that Gordon was born in 1925 and he did return to Canada, married and had two children. He died in 2001. Amazing that you can find out so much from a tiny scrawl and hopefully his descendants will enjoy this little glimpse of his time here in a small village so many miles away from Manitoba.

Arilx