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Saved by the Rum Ration

Ernest Hawker 1876-1938

3/4 City of London Royal Fusiliers

WW1 Battle of Bullencourt 1915 or 1918?
Although he died in 1938 my late Mother handed down this family memory of my Grandfather’s war, his serious injuries and lucky survival. He like many men never spoke much about their experiences, I guess they were just too horrific and he needed to put them behind him.
During WW1 Grandfather Ernest Hawker joined the City of London Royal Fusiliers and became a Drill instructor with the rank of corporal, training recruits in Aldershot and Ipswich.
After some time, I am not sure how long; he was eventually sent to France. There he took part in various actions. However his luck was to run out in the Battle of Bullencourt (1915 or 1918, I am not sure which ?).
He went over the top of the trench and made it half way across no man’s land when a shell exploded close by him. He took shrapnel in his left leg, left arm, back and more minor head injuries.
Both his arm and leg were smashed and he was now immobile but got down in a shell hole for cover. He was carrying some of his RUM RATION in a metal hip flask, which also was hit by the Shrapnel. This caused a gradual leak, which BATHED HIS WOUNDS and may have helped to prevent infection. He lay there for hours and hours until he was recovered and received any proper treatment.
He was eventually treated by the doctors and returned home not to London but to Scotland to convalesce. My Grandmother visited him there and spoke highly of the great kindness of the Scottish people she met. After many months he was discharged and came home.
His leg had mended quite well, he could walk but with a limp which he was never lost.
His left arm was almost useless, permanently bent; he could not move his thumb and only one finger worked.
He apparently rarely complained and felt he was lucky just to have survived perhaps partly due to the LEAKING RUM FROM THE HIP FLASK.
For a number of years before his death in 1938, he and my Grandmother Chrissie owned and ran the St. Mark's Store and Post Office at Tennyson road Cheltenham.
He was a keen gardener, with some adapted tools, so my Mother said; also a member of the Cheltenham branch of the British Legion and also of the Cheltenham Bowling Club.
Chrissie continued to run the Store through WWII until the early 1950’s until she retired due to poor health.

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