The Everlasting Valour

For Jack, innocent childhood days from 1895 were spent playing amongst the wildflower meadows of Woolwich, and sculling a boat on the Thames. Little Jack just aged 13 then ran away to sea, becoming the ‘little cabin boy’, very hard times ensued and so Jack’s Childhood was Over.

When War ‘loomed large’ just before 1914, he signed up with the Royal Navy, serving on a Mine Sweeping Gunboat in the North Sea.

Back at Chatham he was assigned to 1^st Class Battleship H.M.S. Cornwallis, where all the lads enjoyed hot water and bathrooms!

Then at the Dardanelles after heavy losses, incessant bombing and battles my Dad Jack says there was a few weeks of ‘stalemate’ and, “chaps were so browned off” he had an “idea to cheer them up”, to set up a ‘jazz band’.

Instruments duly delivered and the young seamen played, and sang.