Page 11 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 8

near Gully farm. A big tall man, he
was an easy target for the German
trenches as they got close and he
th
was killed on 13 May 1915. He has
no known grave but his name is
remembered on the Ypres Menin
Gate.

Geoffrey Bowlby married Lettice
Annsley in 1911 and they had two
children, my mother Elizabeth and
her brother John who was a baby
when his father was killed. My
grandmother was born in 1885 and
Captain G V S Bowlby died in 1988 aged 102 years. She
was a widow for more than 70 years
and I was very fond of her. After Geoffrey's death she became
very active in war work, becoming Commandant of the Auxiliary
Hospital at Bicester in Oxfordshire which treated wounded
service men. She was twice mentioned in despatches for her
efforts. An epidemic of Spanish flu struck and dehydrated the
wounded men who naturally became dangerously vulnerable.
Being a very practical person she immediately made contact with
her farming and land owning friends and requisitioned as much
of their laid up champagne stocks as she could, made up a meat
broth jelly with it and fed it to the patients, being the only form of
nourishment they could swallow. This recipe proved to be an
excellent recovery aid.

Besides losing her husband, Lettice lost her two brothers in
the first 18 months. She had five sisters; two of them lost their
husbands. My grandmother was a very splendid person, kind
st
and generous and she never re-married like many 1 World War
widows as nearly all their contemporaries were killed. She was

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