Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Life with the gallants of WW1
I am sitting here with a scrap book by my side.
I bought it last weekend - the seller said it was 1930's. He was probably right.
Mostly it contains cut out pictures from a children's book. There are also etchings - presumably from a book showing life in Victorian times.
There are also some drawings done by people that the maker of the scrap book must have known. One might be a portrait of the little girl - a well drawn pencil portrait.
I have been taking some time to follow up the autographs.
Father of the maker of the book must have been quite high up in the army.
The autographs were written by such people.
J B Brunel Cohen was an interesting man who overcame great hardship.
He was born in 1886 in Liverpool. He lost both his brothers during WW1 and then asked to be sent to France. He was wounded and had both legs amputated. He used an electric wheel chair from then on.
In 1918 he was elected to parliament and spent much of his time advancing the cause of the disabled in general and war disabled in particular.
He was chairman of Remploy - now to be disbanded by this government. He was involved in discussions which led to the formation of The British Legion and was its national treasurer.
He was knighted in 1943.
Just who was the family who knew this man?
They also knew recipients of The Victoria Cross and a Canadian known as Billy Bishop, who won just about every award going during WW1 and a film was made about him.
Fascinating.
I wonder where it will go next. There is a Billy Bishop Museum in Ontario. But one autograph in a scrapbook is not that interesting to them. Maybe I will make contact.
Billy Bishop poses in his plane.
And that's buying and selling - lots to learn, new people to learn about and a hope that things can be passed on to another who will really value them.
And a contribution to our holiday fund.
I bought it last weekend - the seller said it was 1930's. He was probably right.
Mostly it contains cut out pictures from a children's book. There are also etchings - presumably from a book showing life in Victorian times.
There are also some drawings done by people that the maker of the scrap book must have known. One might be a portrait of the little girl - a well drawn pencil portrait.
I have been taking some time to follow up the autographs.
Father of the maker of the book must have been quite high up in the army.
The autographs were written by such people.
J B Brunel Cohen was an interesting man who overcame great hardship.
He was born in 1886 in Liverpool. He lost both his brothers during WW1 and then asked to be sent to France. He was wounded and had both legs amputated. He used an electric wheel chair from then on.
In 1918 he was elected to parliament and spent much of his time advancing the cause of the disabled in general and war disabled in particular.
He was chairman of Remploy - now to be disbanded by this government. He was involved in discussions which led to the formation of The British Legion and was its national treasurer.
He was knighted in 1943.
Just who was the family who knew this man?
They also knew recipients of The Victoria Cross and a Canadian known as Billy Bishop, who won just about every award going during WW1 and a film was made about him.
Fascinating.
I wonder where it will go next. There is a Billy Bishop Museum in Ontario. But one autograph in a scrapbook is not that interesting to them. Maybe I will make contact.
Billy Bishop poses in his plane.
And that's buying and selling - lots to learn, new people to learn about and a hope that things can be passed on to another who will really value them.
And a contribution to our holiday fund.
