Private Thomas Parker

East Yorkshire Regiment, 10^th Battalion, Service no. 11/786

Story

The son of Sam Parker and Martha Ann Ingham, and the uncle of Honorary Alderman Keith Parker, Thomas was baptised on the 12^th April 1896, exactly one month after he was born at Red Hill, Great Preston: the 7^th of 11 children. He worked as a Hanger-on in a coal mine in 1911, before he enlisted in the Army.

Thomas and the East Yorkshire 10^th Battalion landed in Egypt on 23^rd December 1915. In March 1916, they moved to France as part of the 92nd Brigade, 31st Division, where the battalion took part in some of the toughest fighting of the war, participating in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and sustaining heavy losses at Oppy Wood the following year.

The photograph above shows all that remained of the original 1,007 men that formed the full 10^th battalion by December 1918. These men had survived a full four years of war.

Extracts from the Autobiography of Tommy Parker
Childhood
‘‘I was born in 1896 at Great Preston and like all other babies I know nothing about my first year or two. As I grew older I learned a few things from my elder sisters of that unknown period. For instance, at a month old my mother took me to Micklefield Colliery where there had been an explosion in the pit and many men were killed. At that time a birth meant two weeks in bed for the mother. My mother with only two weeks of renewed activity walked and probably pushed a pram about six miles each way to the scene of the tragedy. Such was the depth of feeling women had for each other in times of sorrow. My home at Great Preston was a stone built cottage, two up and two down, and enclosed in a yard with two similar cottages. My mother used to get blocks of limestone from Micklefield pit and scald it in a great tub outside and sell it for about threepence a bucket-full for whitening ceilings or outhouses. It was much sought after.
I started school at three years-old in a building at that time called the ‘Old Mission Hall’ which had been a Workhouse and the Village Church in the past. It was from this Mission Hall that I, with other kids, walked hand in hand ahead down to the new infants’ school built at the lower end of the village. It was a Church of England school, patronised by Mrs. Lowther, the wife of Mr. James (Jimmy) Lowther of Swillington House and mother of Sir Charles Lowther of Kent and Yorkshire. Mrs. Beese was head-mistress. She came from Crossgates and I remember Mrs. Kay was teacher of the babies’ class and more of a mother to us youngsters.
We lads slept three in a bed in one room and the younger girls slept in the same room as my parents. The older girls were away in domestic service. My mother always kept one girl at home to help with the work as the family grew bigger, but as one girl left school the girl at home had to go into domestic service and leave home. Her wages would be from five shillings to seven shillings and sixpence (old money) and that trend continued all my life at home. This was known as ‘Gone to Place.’
During those earlier years I remember the Boer War and the bonfires on the relief of Mafeking after a long siege, and the red-coated soldiers when they came on a route march through Great Preston, Kippax and along Long Dyke Lane to Mary Pannel Hill on their way to Castleford and Pontefract.
Great Preston was always a quiet village of about 66 homes, comprising about 34 colliery houses and the rest owned by Mrs. Lowther. Rents were low but so were wages. Farm labourers and a few railway workers got about 18 shillings a week and, in some cases, a rent-free cottage. Most of the men worked at the pits and a good job would mean £3 a week if one was fortunate to work all the six days. If a miner had to stay off work the buzzer would blow the evening before. One long blow for No.1 pit, two blows for No.2 pit and three short blows for No.3 pit. Cottage doors were left open at half past six to listen for the buzzer going. Most men had a garden with his home and on these ‘play days’ he made himself busy in the garden.
The activities in the dark nights were mostly centred around the church and perhaps the pub (Doddy’s). The church was very popular. People were good church goers in those days. Good services twice on Sunday and on Wednesday, evensong. Sunday school on Sunday morning and again in the afternoon. I was a choir boy along with my eldest brother and a regular Sunday school scholar. We had an institute connected with the church for games such as billiards, dominoes, darts and card games but I believe card games were frowned upon.
A sight that has long gone out of date was the drover teams of three men and a dog driving about 100 sheep, 30 cows and sometimes a bull being led by the ring in his nose. These droves were walking to Castleford from Whitkirk Auction Market and were destined for slaughter. There were generally three droves every Monday, late afternoon, and everybody kept their yard or garden gate closed against them.
When I was about 8 years-old Great Preston had a new church built beside the Infant school of which I spoke earlier. At the laying of the foundation stone anyone could lay a brick for the payment of one shilling a brick. Unknown to anyone I slipped a few bricks on with a piece of broken slate and the unused mortar left by the workmen at the end of the day.
There was no water in the houses. People relied upon the street tap half way along the street and each household kept two water buckets handy for carrying water and a square frame to set between the full buckets for easier balance and carrying without spilling on ones legs. Practically every household had a garden. Lots of people kept domestic fowls and with most houses there was a piggery. These modern days when a house is built a garage is built with it. I lived in the days of ‘pig-hoils’, ‘hen-hoils’, ‘rabbit-hoils’ and dog kennels.
When I was thirteen years-old, I left school and started work down the pit working for 11 shillings and 3 pence a week. 10 hours a day, fifty eight hours a week for very little pay. I used to get sixpence pocket money which I saved for the dance in the schoolroom on Saturday night. I still wore short trousers (knee-breeches) and didn’t have long trousers until I was eighteen.
Enlistment and Call-up
The First World War had started and I was old enough to enlist. I enlisted under the Lord Derby Scheme, but I had to stay at work as a miner until I got called up. I got nine pence for enlisting and an armband for protection – there were women going round sticking white feathers in men’s button holes because they were not in the war. The time came round when there was a call up for 50 men from our pit. My name was pulled out of the cap along with my two brothers.
I was called up for service in the war. I set about to be a good soldier, and know my job. For I realised that the War was “Death or Glory” and the job had to be done. On my only leave before going to France, I was twelve hours late reporting back for duty, and at the Court Martial I got a real wigging – seven days’ pay stopped, seven days jankers and seven days field punishment No. 1.
The big burly Sergeant in charge of the Court Martial knocked me down the steps of the guard room, with his knee in my back, and sent me sprawling to the ground. The corporal who escorted me back to the bank room remarked on the heavy punishment meted out to me, and told me that No. 1 field punishment was that I would be tied to a gun wheel for a stated period for seven separate days.
Two days later on the afternoon parade and fall-in, there was some parade ground, and an escort brought the big burly sergeant who had knocked me down. He had been reduced to Lance Corporal for taking money from the gambling tables, instead of stopping them.
Whilst standing in company formation on the platform an officer and two corporals came and called my name and took me to another batch of men, thirty strong, mostly long service men.
With some source of merriment they asked me where I was going. When I said I didn’t know, they giggled heartily and commented, “Tha’ll soon know, young-un.” Eventually the officer came back again and called me out and took me back to my original company again. I was to learn later that I had been put into the hardened wrongdoers who were going to Ipswich to undergo their punishment in the hard grind camp.
Arrival at the Front
After we got to France I got assigned to the 10th East Yorks and joined them in the forward lines, in touch with the enemy. The first night in the fighting line was memorable. The officer came down the trench asking for a volunteer officer’s runner. No-one spoke up. I was end man in the trench, and when he got to me, he pulled out his revolver and laid it against my chest, saying, “You are my runner, or else.” With this, one of the seasoned men spoke up and said he would do the job, which let me out. Later in the night, I was told that I had been elected scout, and that I would have to go out into the No-Man’s Land by myself at 8am, to draw the enemy’s fire, and get them to show up their position. This was my task every other morning. Many days I went out alone, and the general body of men never came up with me. The job was worst at night when I had to find my company again. Getting back was worse than getting forward.
Tommy in action
On one occasion I had got right behind a machine gun post, possibly without them seeing me. I fired a shot across their position which startled them and aroused them into action, but it was to gather up everything and retreat back. I kept well out of sight as they moved back. They were too many for me, but I put the fear of being surrounded into them. Taking up their position, the British guns opened fire with shells on me. But I was never in real danger from them. The Germans had left me a good shelter. After the shelling, the Infantry came charging across the field, with bayonets fixed, and I stepped out of my shelter, showed myself and shouted to them to “Come on, you’re all right.” At this they all fell down flat into the prone position. Fearing they might fire at me, I took evasive action for a few minutes, then stepped out again, and shouted again, “Come on, you’re all right.” At this, they came up to me. The officer came up to me, and with a stern command asked, “Who are you, and how have you got here?”
I told him I was a scout from the 10th East Yorks. He was surprised at this statement, and ventured to say that they were the 11th East Yorks. He loaded me up with ammunition for the Lewis Guns thy carried, and bade me to join them. I carried on with them, but at the first obstacle, we lost two men, shot in the chest. Somewhere, a marksman was waiting in the shadows for us. We were held up by machine gun fire from a broken down farmhouse, and the officer asked me to patrol back down our tracks, in case of being surrounded behind us. Towards evening, one of the party came back to me and told me I had to go and bring in the relief party, and he had to go with me in chance I did not know where the relief party were, I being from another company. Going back was a precarious journey. We were being shot at by our own men in reserve trenches who must have been trigger-happy. In the distance we saw three officers consulting maps and we made for them. They eagerly showed us the maps, gave us details of roads, fields and broken down buildings, and we pinpointed where we had left the fighting men. In all, when I had ousted the German gun party, the advance made was two and a half miles to the spot.
As the details of the situation had been told – officer to officer – our officer turned and looked at me and then turning to the other officer, he said, “We were held up here by a gun party and our guns bombarded it for a long time, and when we got here, this kid had already taken it, and we had been bombarding him. “What are you going to put in your report?” said the second officer. “Nothing” said the first officer. “It’s hard lines on the kid, but I am saying nothing.”
On the way back to the rear with the two wounded men, we stopped at a deserted farmhouse to fill up our water bottles, and as I was the unknown quantity, I was last to get a fill-up, and they went away into the darkness without me. I journeyed around in the no-man’s land for an hour or two, and then I caught up with a company of men who turned out to be men from our own battalion, the 10th East Yorks.
When we got back to Headquarters, we were served hot Irish stew and wasn’t I ready for it, having had nothing to eat all day.
We were given a blanket and shown a bivouac in which eight of us tried to sleep, pestered by low-flying German planes, who were just doing this to keep us from sleeping peacefully.
Tommy is wounded
Sometime after this, I was out on my early scouting, and I got shot in the ribs, and the bullet tore across my back. In time, the Red Cross men pulled me down, tore my short from my back and bandaged me up with strips from my shirt. They told me to shelter behind a pill box until they were ready to take me to the rear. But a German shell fell near me, and lifted me and the pill box high in the air and I knew then to keep going and get out of the area.
I met the battalion doctor on the way. He looked at my wounds and told me to carry on to the dressing station. Here I was re-dressed and given a drink of tea and a meat sandwich. A German prisoner, who was sitting opposite me, got nothing. He seemed a very inoffensive sort of chap (he was wounded in hand and arm) so I pitied him and offered him half my sandwich. He looked around at the others, seated in the canvas awning, before he took it, and as he saw there was no objecting, he held out his hand and took it, uttering what I sincerely believed was thanks.
On the way from the fighting area, we called at one or two more dressing stations and he was eventually taken away, but not before he had sought me out to show me his thanks for my good deed. It was at this station where I collapsed, and I was kept back for an hour, and then sent by ambulance to Boulogne, and an American hospital, where I was operated on to get the bullet of my ribs, and cut away the burned flesh around the wound. Two days in a tent hospital and I was sent to a Canadian hospital to wait for a boat back to England. We crossed to Dover, a zigzag sail which took about four hours.
Arriving at Dover, we were all transferred to a waiting train. I asked discreetly where we were bound for. It was whispered that it was most likely to be ‘somewhere in Scotland’. On a journey through the night, we crossed the Forth Bridge and the Tay Bridge, and just outside Dundee was my destination. I was in hospital here for about one month, and my job (when I was allowed to be up) was to look after the fires in the kitchen and the water boiler.
After the War
I made my future with Amy Wagstaff whom I married on the 23^rd April 1921, although we had a bad start to married life, two lengthy strikes and a year on the dole. I got a job at Fryston Pit, it was a day job, 9 shillings and 8 pence per day.
Amy and I got on well together, we had a son now and everything was rosy. Having worked at Fryston Colliery from 1928 to 1951 I came to Ledston Luck pit to be nearer home for the last ten years before retirement, working as a haulage worker around the faces. I got £203 on retiring March 12^th 1961 and our joint pension was £7 per week. We kept up our dancing until 1973. Sadly Amy went into hospital in 1977 where she died. Dancing, I believe, has helped me live to this grand old age.’’