Horace (George) Allen

by Geoff Harvey

My grandfather, Horace Allen (known as ‘George’ by my grandmother, who hated the name) joined up soon after war broke out. I have a faded formal photograph of him looking incredibly young and proud in his smart uniform, and have recently seen his signature on a copy of the original enlistment form, in a clear, confident hand.

Of his five brothers, one was unfit for service, but the other four fought as ordinary infantry soldiers at Mons, and later in the trenches at Ypres. He once told my brother and me the story of the alleged appearance of the ‘Angels of Mons’ to the British troops – thought to be a freak cloud formation that looked like a group of angels – though he did not see it himself. But he never mentioned Ypres, and he never spoke of his brothers who, I learned later, were all killed. 

He occasionally entertained us with snatches of marching songs – ‘Mademoiselle from Armentieres’ springs to mind. Otherwise, he never talked of his experiences, and being incurious young children, we didn’t ask. He was more willing to talk about his post-war attempts to find work in America, and his interesting time as a chauffeur to a family in Sissinghurst, where my grandmother was a lady’s maid.

All this was brought back to mind last Christmas, when my wife and I joined with a choir to sing at one of the great churches in Bruges, and in the Christmas market. We took the opportunity to tour the Salient battlefield, and to explore the wonderfully restored town of Ypres. We had been invited to sing a couple of carols at the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate, the great monument to the fallen at Ypres, and to lay a wreath. These days this ceremony attracts large crowds – approximately fifteen hundred when we were there – but they were utterly still and silent as we sang, and as the bugles played. And I felt somehow closer to my grandfather, and to his brothers whom I never met.