Ernest Whitehead 1889 - 1975

The finest man I ever knew.

My father, who was a farm labourer, enlisted on 22nd October 1914 and served with the 1/8th Sherwood Foresters in France from 6th June 1915 to 25th April 1916. He returned to the UK after losing his right arm just above the elbow. He would never talk about that time and I don't even know the circumstances in which he was wounded. Reading a contemporary history of the 1/8th Battalion, I can find no significant engagement around the few days preceding his return to the UK. It is interesting that, until I unearthed it, even my mother didn't know that it was the second time he had been wounded. After a period in Roehampton Hospital and discharge he became a Postman in October 1919, a job he held down until he was retired at 60 in 1949.

However with 3 children still at school (my sister 12, me 7 and my brother 5) he had to find work until he was 65 and starting receiving the state old age pension. He was a “tea boy” on a building site, a labourer in a factory, a British Legion car park attendant and had several other jobs.

 He is the only disabled Postman I have ever come across and wondered how he came to get the job in the first place. One would have thought that two hands were essential for a postman. One of his detachable hands was in the form of a sprung device in which he could hold the letters. He had this and a hook for holding things like a spade when gardening and an artificial hand with a sprung thumb.

A visit to the Post Office Archive Office in London revealed that following WW1 there was positive discrimination in the Civil Service in favour of disabled ex-servicemen.

Click on this link for more information.

An amusing aside - My father had two artificial arms complete with hand. One for everyday use and one for “best”. When my father died he was buried wearing his “best” artificial arm and hand. My mother could not decide what to do with the other arm and hand. The NHS did not want them back and she could not face putting them in the dustbin. So for whatever reason decided to bury them in her garden. We chuckled but Mum couldn’t understand what we found so funny. We could picture the scene years later when some poor person digging in the garden found a hand and arm emerging. What a shock!

 Apart from discharge papers etc. I have nothing from my father's time in WW1 and nothing survives at the War Office either.

The little Dad said

 He said once with a chuckle about the Belgians running along the trench and shouting " La Boche La Boche"

He said that he had been to Armentiers when the song Mademoiselle from Armentier parle vous was once being sung.

My sister Barbara says that our father was in hospital with gassed Canadians. He mentioned this once while watching All Quiet on the Western Front.

My sister Barbara also says that when he lost his right arm a shell burst in the trench and killed all the men by him.

Also mentioned if you fell, you drowned in the mud.