Friday Folk

JUST over a year ago, Friday Folk told how a Blackburn church was trying to keep alive the names of those who died in two wars.

The Vicar and congregation at St Gabriel's Church, felt that, with the passing of the years, the people mentioned on the remembrance board were in danger of becoming mere names.

So George Eastwood was given the task of gathering information on those who died, with the intention of publishing a booklet.

Now Mr Eastwood has completed his mission with the booklet Tell Them of Us.

It is a moving record of the men who gave their lives, with short biographies gleaned from relatives and friends.

Included is Kenneth Gill, the son of William and Alice, who was born on Christmas Day, 1920.

An old boy of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, he later worked at Blackburn Town Hall. As a member of the Territorial Army, he was called to colours on September 1, 1939 in the East Lancashire Regiment, in which he was a sergeant.

In February, 1941, he transferred to the Royal Air Force to train as a pilot and became a Night Fighter PIlot, flying Beaufighters. He flew many missions until he failed to return from a flight over the North Sea on September 8, 1942.

The last message on the intercom to his navigator was: "After you Catlin." It is thought they were baling out.

Grayham Bancroft Byrne, was the eldest child of Arthur and Mary and another old boy of QEGS.

He volunteered for the Royal Air Force at 18 and became a sergeant rear gunner with 138 squadron.

He was reported missing in August 1945, presumed dead.

The following year his parents received a letter saying Grayham and his companions had been buried by the Germany Army in a communal grave near Avallon. Many years later, Grayham's sister Jean and brother Michael and families went to France and found his grave with the help of a man who had been head of the French Resistance.

The man remembered the incident when Grayham died - two planes had collided.

The site had remained undisturbed since 1944.

In July 1994, the Special Air Service placed a wreath on the communal grave and a memorial now stands at the roadside, indicating the accident happened during the dropping of supplies.

All the names in Mr Eastwood's book relate to the Second World War.

Efforts to get details of those whose names appeared on the 1914-1918 board, which stood in the St Chad's Mission until it closed in May 1971, have not been successful.

The original letters from relatives who helped with the research are now preserved in a file which is being retained in the church safe and can be examined on request.

Copies of the booklet are also available.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.