The English Soldier we adopted in Flanders

A remarkable and moving account of remembrance across borders.

A few months ago, I received an email from Sarah. Her mother, Margaret, had long tended the grave of a Belgian refugee in Cornwall and wondered if I could help uncover more of his story. That request became this article: A Belgian Refugee in Cornwall.

There’s a second thread to Sarah’s family story – one that runs in the opposite direction. In the early 1970s, when the family lived in Flanders, they “adopted” the grave of an English soldier in their local cemetery at Marke: Private James Howarth Birtwell, DCM. His is the only Commonwealth War Grave in that burial ground, and over the years Sarah came to think of him simply as “my soldier.”

What follows is Sarah’s deeply personal account of her lifelong connection to Private Birtwell – a connection that began when she was just five years old and has shaped her life in ways she could never have imagined. It’s a story about memory, loss, and the unexpected ways our lives become intertwined with those who came before us.

Catharsis on a Page

By Sarah Snow

On the evening of Saturday 16th September 2023, a commemoration service, organised by De Geschiedkundige Vereniging van Markebeke (The Historical Society of Markebeke) was held at the graveside of Private James H. Birtwell DCM. Birtwell’s is the only Commonweath War Grave in the village cemetery of Marke, in Flanders, Belgium. He was killed on October 20, 1918, as the result of a boobytrap left behind by the Germans as they fled before the advance of the 17th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.

Standing in front of Birtwell’s headstone, I allow myself a smile. It seems odd to have fond memories of a cemetery. This place is as familiar to me as all the many places I have lived. It’s the only constant in my life.

* * * * * * *

I moved to Belgium with my parents and younger sister in September 1972 as my father was to set up the Benelux division of Pickford’s International. Within a month, I was learning a new language, settling into a class, and making new friends. I only vaguely remember coming back from school that October day. My mother has told the story to so many people that I am no longer sure what is my memory or her tale. It seems that I was excited to share the news that soon there was to be a day off school. There was to be a public holiday. Always a good thing for a child. On 2nd November (All Souls Day), people would be going to the cemetery to place flowers on family graves. Of course, having newly arrived, and being the only Brits in the village, we had no relatives or friends buried there.

My father carried out some research and discovered there was one British First World War soldier buried in the local cemetery. This was strange as most of the war dead are remembered in large Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) cemeteries. So, although my family was from Yorkshire, we decided to adopt the Lancashire Fusilier and honour his memory.

When everyone walked down to the cemetery on that first 2nd November, I went along too with my own bouquet of chrysanthemums clutched tightly in my hands. I felt part of the class and happily skipped along with my new friends. I remember it being a sunny day. But then, aren’t all childhood days? Standing at the grave, I could have no idea what a journey lay ahead of me. How in only four years’ time, my father would lie just two rows further back. Two Brits in a foreign field that is forever England, as Rupert Brooke would say.

We continued to visit Birtwell’s grave regularly. My father had always had an interest in the First World War. Ieper is only twenty-four miles away from Marke and so he would often take us on trips to visit local WWI sites and museums. It seemed perfectly normal to me for two little girls to grow up, crawling in and out of the trenches of Flanders. Doesn’t everyone?

* * * * * * *

On 4th August 1976, our lives changed forever. My father was killed in a car crash. He was 34 years old. The grief I felt then is indescribable. How can a nine-year-old process the loss of her rock? It is only now, as a parent myself, that I can begin to appreciate what my mother must have gone through that summer’s day nearly fifty years ago as well. We’d just moved to the other side of Belgium four days earlier. How my mother managed in a foreign country and in Flemish and French, I still really have no idea. When I asked her, she said she just went through the necessary motions, knowing she had to take care of my sister and me. One of the first things she did, was to move back to Marke where at least she knew people and had the support of friends. In a brief time, my little sister and I were back in our old familiar school, and my father had been reburied in the local cemetery too.

So now there were two graves to visit in November. Because the family were such regular visitors to Birtwell’s grave, we had become known to the CWGC people who tended his grave. When the organisation learnt that my father was to be reburied in the same cemetery as Birtwell, they kindly offered mum an offcut of Portland stone which could not be used for military graves. My father’s stone is smaller, thinner, and not rounded at the top, unlike the military grave markers. But now James Birtwell and Peter Baskill are bound together for all eternity.

* * * * * * *

In 1979 we moved back to UK and now aged eleven, I started research on ‘my’ soldier. At this stage, the only information I had was that which my father had discovered. Birtwell had died at the castle in Marke after his battalion had liberated the village the previous day. The retreating Germans had placed live ammunition in the stoves used to warm the offices of the battalion. Birtwell had gone to the temporary HQ set up by his commanders, to ask for leave as he wanted to tell his parents that he intended becoming a professional soldier rather than just being part of Kitchener’s Army. The stove was lit. Birtwell was killed outright. No one else was injured.

As I had absolutely no idea how to set about researching a long dead soldier, I wrote to the BBC programme “Jim’ll Fix it” but am now extremely glad that I never heard back from the programme! (Editor: Its presenter, Jimmy Saville, was later revealed to be a sexual predator). I also wrote to the Ministry of Defence and received a vast collection of forms to complete, specifying my relationship to Birtwell, his family details etc. All so that they might give me the details for which they asked in the forms. Pointless. My first real breakthrough came when I wrote to The Fusilier Museum in Bury. They sent me copies of Birtwell’s Distinguished Conduct Medal citation which was in the official regimental diary. I learned he had earned his medal for being a runner on The Somme. In the days of fractured communications, it was the runner’s job to take messages back and forth from the front line often under heavy fire. Due to the constant bombardments, information often could not be transmitted over the broken telephone wires.

With the advent of the internet and my return from many years living overseas, I once more devoted time to my search for Birtwell. James Howarth Birtwell, the youngest of four brothers, had volunteered in January 1915, aged eighteen. As he was less than five foot two inches tall, he joined a Bantam Unit, and was assigned to the 17th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. I was interested to note that J.R.R. Tolkien, one of my father’s favourite authors, had been a Signals Officer in the 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. I like to create links, however tenuous. I wonder if he and Birtwell ever met. Unlikely, but fun to imagine.

In 2016, I visited the Somme on a bitterly cold weekend in February. My destination was the Sunken Lane. I’d already seen Geoffrey Malins’ 1916 footage of The Battle of the Somme many times. Malins’ reels are some of the only pieces of contemporary film that exist. I knew my boy was not among those on the film – it’s the wrong battalion. Birtwell’s battalion was further to the East. However, I still search for faces he might have known. The whole area of the Somme is gripping. There is something inexplicable that happens when one stands in that terrain. Even when all around is quiet, it’s as if you can hear the guns, feel the mud grabbing at your boots and smell the long-evaporated stench of bloated corpses and gas in the mist all around you. On this particular day, after leaving Sunken Road, I headed to Serre Road Cemetery No. 2, where the tranquillity returned. The only sound I heard was a cockerel sounding off in the distance. There were no other visitors there that weekend. Just me and a bird to remember the dead.

* * * * * * *

2018 was an important year for World War One historians and enthusiasts, as it marked the centenary of the armistice. But for me, it was also Birtwell’s centenary. By this stage, I’d learnt a fair bit about his actions on the battlefield, but still felt no closer to knowing Birtwell the man. Or boy. I had celebrated my fiftieth birthday the year before, and My Boy now seems ever a lad to me. In April, while scrolling through the chatter on The Great War Forum website, I noticed there was a discussion about a second Portland stone grave marker in Marke cemetery. I joined in the chat and explained that it was not a CWGC grave. It seemed odd to be talking about my father in a World War One group.

I’m still surprised at how it was in that auspicious year that the pieces of Birtwell’s puzzle truly began to fit together. I’d contacted the Clitheroe Town Hall as this was the town from which Birtwell came. They gave me the details of their Civic Society Archivist. After just one email, information started to flow. Next came one of the most remarkable phone calls in my search.

“Hello. My name is Sarah Snow and for the past forty-six years I have been visiting the grave of your great-uncle.” Well, that was one way to start a conversation.

“Oh. That’s amazing. My grandfather was Jimmy’s eldest brother, William.” said Janet. “I actually still live in his family’s home.”

Our first conversation went on for over an hour. It was at this point that a plan was hatched to go to Belgium to visit the grave together. We’d never met. We didn’t know each other and yet we both knew that this bond over a long dead soldier was enough to make this work.

Janet came to stay with me in Dartford and after sharing photos and more information, we set off on Eurostar the following day. We were going to celebrate Jimmy’s centenary together in Marke. We arrived at the cemetery in the morning of 20 October 2018. As I went through the entrance gates, the first thing I noticed was the grassed over empty space on the left. ‘How odd. Surely this was where the oldest, most established graves were?’ Then I remembered. Graves in Belgium only have a fifty-year tenancy, after which, if the tenancy is not renewed, the graves are removed, the bodies are reburied in an ossuary and the spaces are re-let to others. Grave space, in this small country, is at a premium.

 I crunched my way past the silent who line the central gravel path. Row on row they lie. This is a community cemetery, without the uniformity of markers that can be found in a military burial site. The highly decorative rub shoulder with the plain. The marble creations nestle snuggly next to the granite. Still in their rows, but with greater individuality. When I came here at the beginning, I knew only the living. This time, there were too many familiar names in this place. Still, as always, I visited him first. On the right, I finally came to the row of crosses. I walked past the “Gesneuvelde” and the “Mort pour la Patrie” – the local dead of The Second World War – until I arrived at his solitary Portland stone marker. It hadn’t changed. I reached down and re-arranged the flowers I had ordered to be delivered. ‘When was the last time I had come here on a day the local florist was actually open?’ I lifted my head, and my eyes automatically went to the stone just two rows further back. My father. I am now also so much older than he will ever be. Strange how the men in my life all die young. Odd how death has always seemed to have been a part of my life. From an early age, I learnt its cruel lesson. I stood with my small poppy cross, poised to set it at the head of Birtwell’s grave. A tear slid down my cheek. I hoped no one saw it, or that if they did, they would attribute it to my ‘leaky eye’ – damned stroke. ‘Reveille.’ Time to place my cross.

I looked down at the stone. So familiar. I’ve been coming here since I was five years old. By then, Birtwell had already been dead for over half a century. He remains forever twenty-two. This is one soldier who will not be forgotten. Now that I am more than twice the age of Birtwell, I know that he will always be ‘my soldier, My Boy.’ Although I’m aware that CWGC look after him, still I swept away the green from the headstone with the brush I’d brought along, as I do every visit. Standing at the grave, I thought of the piles of notes, papers and photographs crammed into the file in my study. It has taken me over forty years to get this far and I still have more to learn about Private James Howarth Birtwell, DCM. It’s a shame his brothers never knew he was cared for. At least now, his great niece does.

* * * * * * *

Five years further on and here we both are, once more. I’ve returned to Marke with Janet. This time to follow in Birtwell’s footsteps as we take a journey from The Somme to his final resting place. Having spent the night in Marke, we’re happy that the minibus picks us up punctually. I find it strange that we’ll be spending our day with a group of Belgians who are interested in My Boy. Looking at our fellow travellers more closely, they all seem over the age of seventy. I feel strangely young but am saddened that no one my age is interested in these events. Too long ago. It is always so. As we are driven across the flat open countryside of Flanders and into Northern France, the scars of a conflict which took place over one hundred years ago, are still plain to be seen. Shell holes and old trench systems are clearly visible and the closer we get to our destination, the more numerous they become. “What would the soldiers think of the brown signs marking the places where they spilled their blood. And for what?” I think as I stare out of the minibus window. “Within thirty years these same fields were once more the scene of vicious fighting. What a waste.” The concrete bunkers of the Second World War vie with the trenches of the first for the visitors’ attention.

The drive from Marke to our first stop, Martinsart, takes less than two hours. It took Birtwell two years to get from this French village to Belgium. Our route is smooth on the newly paved motorway. How much did he have to struggle through mud and desolation? What awful scenes must have repeated themselves as wave after wave of attack and retreat changed so little in the actual battle? They must surely have left an impact on this young Lancashire lad from Clitheroe. Although none of his letters survive, Janet has photocopied a printed Christmas card Birtwell sent back to the family. In the few words he wrote, only love of family shines through. I know, of course, that not every day was horror. I have done enough research by now to be fully informed of the battalion’s movements, having read numerous war diaries multiple times. With each reading, I’m desperate to find any mention of Birtwell; a small aside, a brief line or quip. Just something to make him more of a person to me. Janet can only tell me so much. From the photographs is it clear that My Boy, Jimmy, greatly resembled his older brother. But still, I want to know more; His favourite colour, his likes and dislikes, the usual trivia which makes up a personality.

My musings are brought up short when the minibus stops at Martinsart CWGC Cemetery, where many Lancashire Fusiliers lie buried. I help Janet get off the bus and we start exploring the cemetery together. “I’ve never seen red gravestones in a war graves’ cemetery before,” says Janet. And in truth neither have I. “The red sandstone was used as an alternative in an experiment in the 1980s as there was a shortage of Portland stone at that time.” I’m pleased that I’d done some research before our trip. This area was close to the Allied front line in September 1916 and after hearing about several of Birtwell’s companions, we are driven to Guillemont Road Cemetery where Private F. Starkie, Birtwell’s friend is buried. He died during a night patrol ambush in the area. Of the 2,263 burials here, Starkie lies in one of only 744 identified graves. The remainder are unknown. What must it have been like for a young man, used to life in Clitheroe, to witness the dreadful hell that was this now peaceful part of France? Everywhere I look, memories of a past I have not lived, are evident.

Next on our itinerary is the place where Birtwell saw the action for which he was awarded his Distinguished Conduct Medal. Because of his small stature, Birtwell was an ideal runner. He would cross over the many craters and obstacles lying between the French and British armies and convey messages securely between his battalion and the troops fighting by their side. I find the reason for his medal a bit overwhelming, as I’m fully aware that the average life expectancy for a runner on The Somme was only six months. Standing in this peaceful field, with the thicket and wood to the left, it is hard to imagine the horrific conditions which he not only had to endure, but also survive. The irony of his death, in a place where he should have been safe, seems even more wasteful when he managed to survive some of the worst battles of the war.

This is not just a pilgrimage for Birtwell, however. Although he was my first, Birtwell has also paved the way for other First World War casualties’ research. I now have several graves which I visit and care for. I also research the lives of the women who worked in hospitals and as volunteers throughout all the theatres of The First World War. So, a detour is made to The Lochnagar Crater. I belong to a group called Wenches in Trenches who research and remember the women of the Great War. The group raised money and in 2015, we arranged to have a memorial placed at the crater, alongside all the regimental ones. I lay my poppy wreath, carefully brought over from the UK, at the foot of the stone. “This is my favourite memorial” I tell the group in both Flemish and French. “It is dedicated to the women of all nations who also served.” I recite off the stone. The reason I most like it, is because of its bench. It’s something useful. Something the doctors and nurses themselves might have appreciated. The fact that it looks out over the French countryside towards a place where once stood a World War I hospital, rather than in towards the crater of death, is another thing I think they would have liked.

Lochnagar is the final stop of the day before we are driven back across the border, towards Marke and the evening’s ceremony. My fellow travellers are quieter now. Is this due to tiredness or have they also been impacted by all they have seen and heard today? Although Marke is a small village of about 8,000, they do My Boy proud. The Baron de Béthune, at whose château Birtwell met his end, lays a wreath of white flowers as do the representatives of the city of Kortrijk. The local equivalent of the Royal Legion is also represented and the last wreaths to be laid are by Janet and me. A bagpiper, not something you usually see in Marke, plays a lament before the Last Post is sounded on a bugle. The notes are still echoing as people bow their heads in remembrance. I always find WWI commemorations emotional, and this one is no exception.

As I glance over to where my father lies buried, I wonder how many more times I’ll be visiting this area, a place so entwined with my past. The future seems more uncertain as the fifty years of my father’s grave ownership will soon end. What to do?

Mum is now 85 and living in Cornwall. She wants my father buried with her. Do we take him there or bring her here? There may well be a corner of some foreign field that is forever England, but, for my father, perhaps, it will no longer be in Marke.

Denzil Walton

I created Discovering Belgium in 2011 to share the country’s hidden stories, fascinating places, and remarkable people. Through articles, photography, and audio walks, I share discoveries that reveal Belgium beyond the obvious. Hope you enjoy this site.