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  • With the 100th anniversary of World War I, I did a bit of research on my great-grandad. He died in 1989, so I remember him reasonably well - not least as he put the phone down on me at Christmas one year (he was about 90 at the time) on the basis that he was 'chatting up a bird'.

    So I did one of those 14 day trials on Ancestry.co.uk (other sites are available), and found that he joined the army in 1910 and was immediately posted to India. He made a leisurely way back via Sudan and Egypt, before finding himself in Gallipoli as a member of the Army Cycilng Corps. This campaign started on the 25th April (he arrived on the 5 May 1915) and ended on the 9 January 1916 (the day he was evacuated). Having thought he had a lucky escape, he was posted to France and joined the Machine Gun Corps (Heavy Section). This became the Tank Regiment and I think it's likely that he saw action at Cambrai. He was allowed to leave the army in September 1918, having suffered shell-shock when his tank was hit killing 4 and wounding 3 (he was unwounded). He was awarded the Military Medal - the Military Cross for non-commissioned servicemen.

    100 years have nearly elapsed since the start of the war, and my great-grandad was just an ordinary working-class man. So I wondered...

    1) Any World War 1 history on here?

    2) An interest in FGSS participation http://www.ctc-heartofengland.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=471&Itemid=248

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