#AmazingAccrington Magazine - Summer Edition 2024

Opposite: The Pals Memorial Garden will feature a fantastic new sculpture. Above: Accrington Town Centre, where the Accrington Pals Memorial Garden is being built.

One thing I felt was lacking, not just for the Pals garden but in the Borough in general, are sculptures. They’re very much of a personal taste and like or loath them, travel out of the Borough and you soon come across sculptures, adding another dimension to a landscaped area. That was my next mission – a sculpture. I put forward some suggestions of sculptors I knew of, the Council had a couple more. A briefing was sent out and we waited for designs. The Town Green Team then had three to choose from. There was a vote, though one proposal shouted out – I was so excited, ridiculously so but I kept quiet until confirmation with the designer. I then gave an update and presentation of the designs to the RBL Accrington. They unanimously agreed on the same sculpture. I’d already met the sculpture / designer – John Everiss and his son George. I’d seen his work at Chelsea in 2018 and again in 2019 at Chelsea (on TV), then in person at Arromanches, Normandy – D-Day 75 Memorial Garden overlooking Mulberry Harbour – stunning, evocative, inspiring and for me, so memorable and fascinating. The process to create the Accrington Pals sculpture is very time consuming and detailed – “probably the most detailed WW1 sculpture that’s been made” John wonders? Two local men, who fit the height and build for recruits of the era, will be dressed in authentic WW1 uniform supplied by Khaki Devils and factually correct in detail. They are scanned using a 3D imaging machine, images fed into a computer, tidied up and then sent to the fabricators – Fitzpatricks in Nelson – for cutting and welding together in layers – sounds simple but there’s much more

involved with around 230 layers of Cor-Ten steel. I’m looking really forward to visiting Fitzpatricks to see the sculpture taking form. Neither John nor the Council knew it was my grandad Percy, brother of an Accrington Pal – Walter Holmes, the uncle of Walter Holmes, Accrington Pals historian – who’d spoken those opening words, also incorporated into one of the town square benches. did regularly, when news broke of the devastating slaughter of the Pals some days after 1 July 1916. A casualty train had pulled into the station. Someone shouted “where are we?” “Accrington” came the reply. “Have you heard what’s happened to the Pals?” And then the news spread. Grandad ran all the way home to Hargreaves Street, telling everyone he met on his way. When he got home he told his mother Margaret, who dropped to her knees and said “thank God our Walter wasn’t there.” Walter was at the Somme but 20 miles down the front line with the Machine Gun Corps. From the 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington), 720 men and boys went over the top that 1st of July and 632 were killed, wounded or missing. Losses which ripped through the townships of Greater Accrington and left hardly any family unaffected. The Pals were no more and the towns radically changed with generations lost, widows, orphans, homelessness, poverty and no heroes return. Grandad Percy was near to Accrington railway station, whacking off school as he This was a stark contrast from the cheering crowds who gathered to watch them march past Accrington Town Hall and wish them farewell. Though, little did anyone

expect was what to come – “it’ll all be over with by Christmas.”

The Accrington Pals have thankfully never been forgotten, largely down to the work of historians Bill (William) Turner and Walter Holmes, who actually met some of the Pals, went on trips back to France with them. Between Bill and Walter, decades were dedicated into researching the men and boys of the Pals and the men, boys and women of Greater Accrington who also served or lost their lives. I hope the renovated Accrington Pals Memorial Garden will be a more pleasant, green space for folk to sit and remember, reflect, continue the Borough’s remembrance of those who gave their all, and with the sculpture, give it another dimension, be a conversation starter, a visual reality of two Pals who… “Slowly make their way back from the front lines. A stray bullet or piece of shrapnel has torn through the arm of one, forcing him to use his jacket to create a makeshift sling. Loss of blood has made him faint, he’s relying on the support of his mate as he picks his way over the stone slabbed pathway. Perhaps friends before they joined up, his corporal carries the kit, both rifles slung over his shoulder, woodbine hanging from the corner of his mouth. He’ll make sure he gets seen by a doctor, after all he knows his chum would do the same for him. A postcard sticks out of his top pocket ready to be sent off to his sweetheart when he gets the chance. Bearing a patriotic lion standing on Eagle, it simply reads; ‘Accrington Pals - Fight to a finish!’” (John Everiss)

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#AmazingAccrington Summer 2024 29