By TONY FOSTER

Local Historian

IT WASN’T much fun growing up in East Lancashire in the years before the Great War. Jobs were humdrum and didn’t pay much. Opportunities afar attracted many young men.

Percy Howarth was about 18 and a baker living in Earnsdale Road, Darwen, when he decided he fancied a new life in Canada. He packed his bags and off he went to become a seaman out of Vancouver.

It wasn’t long before he was back. The Great War had suddenly broken out and he was determined to do his bit.

He joined the 121st ‘Overseas’ Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and was soon training with them in England. He was promoted to Corporal and was fighting with the 7th Canadian Expeditionary force in Flanders.

The Canadians took a heavy pounding there and the names of thousands of them were engraved on the Canadian National Vimy Memorial which commemorates soldiers who died during the war and who have no known grave.

However, the Canadians have not stopped looking for the remains of their men so that they can give as many as possible a decent burial.

Corporal Howarth’s remains were unearthed 12 years ago during a munitions clearing process for a construction site in Vendin-le-Vieil, about three miles north of Lens in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. It was close to Hill 70 which was in the thick of the battle for Vimy Ridge in the late summer of 1917.

There was a digging tool, and a watch and a whistle in a pocket.

The Darwen lad was one of more than 10,000 from several Canadian divisions who were killed, wounded or missing. Many suffered from the new mustard gas which was unleashed by the Germans.

However, Cpl. Howarth hadn’t married and finding relatives in England was proving impossible ... until they got in touch with Darwen Heritage Centre which has traced many “lost” soldiers in the past few years.

Bill Whalein, president of the British Columbia Regimental Museum, contacted me a few months ago and, armed with what little we knew, I finally managed to put him in touch with the family of one of Percy’s great nieces who lives in Manchester.

The Museum has been in contact with the family and they will by invited to the reburial, with full military honours, later this year at the CWG Cemetery at Loos.

The Hon Anita Anand, Canada’s Minister of National Defence, said: “Time and distance do not diminish the courage Corporal Howarth brought to the battlefield in service to Canada. His family should trust that we will remember the ultimate sacrifice he made.”

Percy had two brothers who fought in the Great War. Lt. John Howarth, served with the Loyal North Lancs, and was killed two weeks earlier, in Flanders, while Eleazer Thompson also fought with the Canadians and survived. The lads had three sisters.