As well as finding out about Percy Honeybill’s war the other thing I wanted to know about was his family. How were we related? A chance on-line conversation with writer Donna Gagnon led to my reading a sea faring entry on her family history blog and discovering I was in the hands of another expert.…
Category: WW1
Percy Honeybill’s War
Once I was back home I applied myself to finding out more about Percy Honeybill and what might have happened to him. As always Jeremy Banning was an invaluable source of information. He confirmed that Percy would definitely have been in the first battalion of the Kings Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) and would have been…
Private Percy Honeybill 1887 – 2nd September 1918
My mother always used to say that if you came across a Honeybill anywhere in the world the chances were that we were related – Honeybill was her maiden name. It turns out she was more correct than she realised as the surname was ‘created’ by a clerk’s error in the mid eighteenth century which…
Somme and Arras day 2 – the world turned inside out
I woke early on the second day to the sound of a cockerel crowing somewhere nearby in the village. This was to be a day of the woods – Mametz, Mansel copse, Delville (known as Devil’s wood to the soldiers), and High Wood. I have an affection for woodland which goes back to a childhood…
Somme and Arras – the dead
Sometimes when another writer dangles an opportunity in front of your nose you have to say yes even if it doesn’t necessarily square with your other plans nor with the time you have available. So on the first Friday of October, thanks to Vanessa Gebbie, I found myself on Eurostar early in the morning heading…