Royal Army Medical Corps, 131st Field Ambulance, Service no. 48327
Born: 1881. Died: 11th May 1929
William Counter was from St. Dogmaels, Cardigan, West Wales. He first served throughout the 2nd Boer War and was awarded the Queen’s South African Medal with four bars (South Africa 1901, Transvaal, Orange Free State and Cape Colony.) On his return, he moved to St. Dogmaels and worked as a master baker, starting his own bakery in his own home, and as a Pearl Insurance agent. He married Rose Naish and they had three children. He enlisted for service in the First World War after his brother Walter was killed on board HMS Aboukier (below left) which was torpedoed in 1914 in the North Sea. He was the first to enlist in his village and served on the Western Front in France.
William returned from service in April 1918 with tuberculosis and was treated at Longshaw Lodge in Derbyshire, a hunting lodge owned by the Duke of Rutland which was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers.
William’s wife took their three children to Longshaw to see him. After having tuberculosis, he could no longer work as a baker.
During the war he carried a photo of his wife with the following poem written on the back:
Dreams just dreams of long ago,
Dreams of days that we both know,
Time can never change the past,
You’re mine, in dreams until the last,
Summer’s gone and life grows cold,
Still in dreams you’re mine of old,
Hearts may break but you can’t take,
Those golden dreams of long ago.
He was described as a peaceful, talented, kind and generous man with a wicked sense of humour.
He eventually died of tuberculosis in 1929, aged 48.
‘William Counter was my grandfather. Unfortunately I never met him. He died when my mother was 15 years old’. Myra Edwards, as Miss Myra Brown, I came to work in Kippax Primary School in 1968.
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