A considerable amount of further research has been carried out since the Parish at War articles were first published several years ago.The updated research is now published in the book A Parish at War launched on 11.11.11 and obtainable via Deddington Library or email Rob Forsyth
By Michael Allbrook
The War Memorial in the Churchyard of
St Peter and St Paul, Deddington
The Parish Church of Clifton, Deddington and Hempton
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
When the War Memorial was erected in 1922, it was sufficient for the inscription to be simply a name and an initial. Everybody knew them.
Now more information is necessary to tell us about these Men of Deddington.
You will see that the names include men who had emigrated to Australia, Canada and New Zealand and still they volunteered to support the land of their birth.
Men of Deddington died in Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Sicily, Syria and Turkey where their Graves and Official Memorials may be found.
It was government policy that all those who died overseas would be buried where they died irrespective of their rank.
Blessed or Thankful Villages is a term for the small number of villages in England and Wales which lost no men in World War I. The term was coined by the writer Arthur Mee in the 1930s who wrote that a Thankful Village was one which had lost no men in the Great War because all those who left to serve came home again. His initial list identified 32 villages.
In their Thankful Village website (click here) this list has been extended to 50 Parishes.
In France there is just the one village Thierville in the Eure department in northern France such was the price paid.
If you wish to visit any of the graves click here and it will give you precise details about how to reach the Cemetery and the location of the grave
Live thou for England,
We for England died
©Michael Allbrook
Deddington, July 2009