LIFESTYLE - SUMMER 2017

S.U.I.B

LIFE : STYLE chats to renowned Accrington author and historianWalter Holmes...

(Scruffy, Untidy, Insubordinate, Ba$*&^d!)

Interview by Sarah Rigg

H

istorian, Accrington Pals expert and former firemanWalter Holmes has a few things to get off his chest before this "bloody" interview. Number 1: He doesn't do photographs. EvenWalter's fire service warrant card never displayed a standard headshot, just a picture of an empty chair! Number 2: If ‘thee or me' can't understand whatWalter is saying, it's because the real Lancashire accent has been contaminated by southerners. "When I wur brought up everybody talked like me. It's got ruined by these people who have come into Lancashire. Jessies and southerners." Unfalteringly blunt (but always with a glint in his eye) it isWalter's single-mindedness which makes him quite brilliant at what he does. And what he has done for the large part of his 86 years is research, collate and report. Walter's most notable work is a 398-page document on the Accrington Pals casualties between 1st and 5th of July 1916. It took more than 30 years of exhaustive cross-referencing of original records to list the 1,698 original Accrington Pals and regionally, 4,292 men of the 11th Baalion East Lancs. "I also have 14,000 names in my file I'm trying to put detail to," he says. Walter undertook the mammoth task aer responding to an advert by a fellow researcher, the late Bill Turner. He recalls: "It wur the early 1980s when I contacted Billy. I'd just retired and I was indexing ancient parish registers for a database.” Much of the Pals and 11th Baalion East Lancs’ research entailed trips to the national army archives at Kew record office where Bill andWalter spent hours trawling through military documents. "Everything had to be wrien down in pencil because pens were not allowed and there is no photocopying or cameras allowed at Kew. And you cannot afford mistakes either. It is a long way fromAccrington to Kew!" Walter grew up around stories of the Accrington Pals. "I've known about the Accrington Pals all my life because my UncleWalter wur one and me dad used to follow them around town when he wur a school lad too. "Dad wur always bunking off school and geing pasted for it. He was near the railway station when he heard the women who had just been told the Pals had been decimated. "Dad ran all the way home shouting out to people on the way home. When he got there my grandma sank to her knees and thanked God, my uncle, Walter wasn't there. UncleWalter was 20 miles away when the

landmine went off and the blast knocked him off his feet.” While the surviving Pals would talk quite openly about their experiences in front of seven-year-oldWalter and his dad, like many men returning fromwar, it was a taboo subject at home. "I only heard snippets, but they never showed their emotions back then. Which isn't good, if you try to suppress emotion a lot of it comes out in anger. Years later Bill Turner was amazed by howmuch my father knew about the Pals." In 1975Walter and his father went on a coach trip to France and Belgiumwith some of the Pals. He recalls: "Some of the men stood by their mates' graves and they wept and not one was ashamed by it. Not only were those men heroes on the balefield, they had to be heroes for the rest of their lives." It was moments like these and the moving stories of families devastated by losing their sons, that has helped to buildWalter's loyalty to faithfully recording the names of each of the Pals who lost their lives duringWW1.

Andwoe betide anyone – other historians, TVdocumentary researchers, newspaper journalists or ‘keyboardwarriors' – who try to present myths as facts. Walter, whowas praised in the House of Commons for helping Graham JonesMP to research his grandfather's Pals history, has given up complaining

Collating the Accrington Pals data has been painstaking, but rewarding, and it isn't hard to seewhyWalter is so fiercely protective of thework he and Bill undertook.

Above (fromtop): AccringtonMayoress

"It wur a big job," he says. "Awork of that magnitude could only be carried out by somebody who is retired and another bloody idiot who is retired to do the research for him! "What I'mdoing now is Accrington Palsmedal cards for John at the library. Everyman should have amedal card, but not everyman has. So them that hasn't, I'mmaking one for them."

presentsWalter’sbooks to theMayorsofBapaumeand Puisieux inFrance. Walter isbothsurprised anddelighted tobegranted theFreedomofBapaume andPuisieux inFranceafter respectivemayors. Mainpictureright: WalteratAccrington Librarywherepeoplequeue to ndoutabout their relatives’historieswith the AccringtonPals. Insetright: Walter refused to haveaheadshotphotoon his reservicewarrantcard. compiling twospecially boundbooks for their

to themainstreammedia. "They don't listen anyway”, he says. NowWalter concentrates on correcting people posting Pals inaccuracies on Facebook's Hyndburn Chat or the online forum AccringtonWeb.

Walter recalls living through the SecondWorldWar as a young teenager living on Hargreaves Street. "I used towatch the Jerrys flying over during the night, bombing Salford andManchester. You could hear the shrapnel coming down. I wur always geingmy arse slapped for hanging out of thewindow seeing the flash of ack-ack shells exploding."

On the flip side to thisWalter has helped dozens of families via social media to find out about their own lost relatives and their acts of bravery duringWW1.Walter has also receivedmanymore requests through Accrington library – some from families as far flung as Argentina, South Africa and Australia.

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