North Yorkshire / Co Durham cycle ride, from Aldbrough St John
This bike ride is in memory of 2 of the young men from Stanwick St John (just down the lane from Aldbrough St John) who never returned from WW1 - particularly poignant in the 1914-18 Armistice Centenary year. On this cycle ride I cycle around the area they would have known - in North Yorkshire and County Durham.
Here's some background about the two young men, Frank & Norman Bastow. The following is from an article I was invited to write for the Stanwick St John parish magazine:
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There are 72,096 names inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial in France. It’s almost impossible to comprehend that the bodies of 72,096 soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme were never recovered. 72,096 men still lie where they fell, their names repeated on numerous war memorials across Britain and the Commonwealth.
One of these 72,096 is Lieutenant N Bastow whose name can also be found on a brass plaque in the tiny village church of Stanwick St John, near Darlington. The plaque commemorates nine local men who were killed in the First World War. Two were brothers: Norman and Frank Bastow. Norman was killed on the Somme on 23rd October 1916 and his brother Frank on the Aisne on 27th May 1918.
What’s curious about the Bastow brothers is that they weren’t strictly local men at all; they weren’t even British born. Yes, they lived in Stanwick St John for a while where their stepfather was the local vicar and both fought in the West Yorkshire Regiment. But they were born in France. Ironically they were to die in France too.
The family came from Bradford. The boys’ grandfather worked for his wife’s uncle, industrialist Sir Isaac Holden who established a number of woolcombing mills in Northern France, one of which was in Reims.
There was a thriving ex-pat community in Reims. Entire generations were born there including Frank Bastow in July 1893 and Norman less than a year later in June 1894. After their father’s death, they moved to England where, in 1902, their mother married the vicar of Stanwick St John, the Rev Arthur C Starling. The brothers were sent to Dulwich College as boarders.
In 1912 Frank won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, and both were planning engineering careers when war broke out; Norman was already an apprentice with the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company.
Like many young men, the brothers immediately joined up - in the North-East based 3rd West Yorkshire Regiment which supplied officers for the 1st and 2nd West Yorkshire battalions.
Both were eager to see active service. Norman even appears to have changed regiments to the Northumberland Fusiliers in order to do so before re-joining the 2nd Battalion of the WYR. Both set out for France in 1915. Only Frank would ever return to England, during a convalescent spell following an injury to his elbow.
Norman was injured first, in August 1916. He was discharged from hospital in Rouen only to be killed at Les Boeufs on the Somme on 23rd October. The school Roll of Honour records that he was killed by a sniper but experts believe this may have been a ‘kinder’ way to disguise a messier death... Norman lies where he fell in what is now a field bisected by the A1 Autoroute.
Frank was wounded in September 1916, close to where his brother would die the following month. He was invalided back to England for eighteen months where, the following February, he was promoted to the rank of Captain.
Although he never recovered the full use of his arm, Frank gallantly returned to active service in April 1918 only to be killed on the first day of 3rd Battle of the Aisne on 17th May. Practically the whole battalion was wiped out, taken by surprise in a ferocious attack involving heavy artillery and gas.
In the National Archives at Kew are copies of the telegrams sent to the vicarage at Stanwick St John. Norman’s, sent on the 27th October 1916, says: “Deeply regret to inform you that N Bastow, 3 West Yorks & Trench Mortar Battery was killed in action Oct 23. Army council express their sympathy”.
Frank’s, sent on the 6th June 1918, simply says: “Deeply regret Capt F Bastow att second West Yorkshire Regt killed in action May twenty seventh. Army council expresses sympathy”.
Although both are addressed to the men’s mother, she wasn’t around to receive them. Mrs Starling had died on April 1st 1916, the result of a tragic accident at the vicarage.
So by 1918 all three were dead: Frank, Norman and their mother. In a way Frank’s life had come full circle. He died just outside his birth city of Reims.
Like his brother, Frank’s body was never found. His name is carved on the Soissons Memorial, one of over 4,000 officers and men who died during the Battles of the Aisne and the Marne who have no known grave.
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