Family War Heroes - Walter Henry Albert Sillence (353671)

Southampton on 26 August 1917, and a city bustling with the movement of troops.  Amongst those leaving home for a new and unfamiliar territory is 33-year-old Walter Henry Albert Sillence, who has been posted as a gunner to the Royal Garrison Artillery.  They are en route to a gruelling campaign that has been raging in Mesopotamia.  It’s a campaign that has gone on since the early days of the war, but at the time of Walter’s embarkation, the tide has been firmly turning in favour of the Allies – Baghdad, the Ottoman Empire’s southern capital, has fallen just a few weeks before, and this fresh wave of troops sets off with new-found optimism, to finish the job.

Walter received his notice and signed the attestation forms back on 29 November 1915.  The next day, he was posted to the Army Reserve - the forces in the UK who were going through basic training and awaiting posting overseas.  More than a year passed, during which time Walter was fully vaccinated, and assigned the regimental number 353671.  Walter is not a particularly young man for the military, nor is he particularly tall, measuring only five foot five, and perhaps this is why he has been posted to the RGA instead of the infantry.  As the HMAT A74 "Marathon" (A transport ship borrowed by the Australians, and recalled by Britain in April 1917) leaves Southampton Docks that morning, Walter watches his home city disappear into the distance.  He leaves behind everything familiar; his parents, one brother (the other having already been enlisted in the RGA), and a wife from whom he has already separated.

HMAT A74 Marathon

The Marathon and its cargo of troops has negotiated the Mediterranean, made it through the Suez Canal, and rounded the entire Arabian Peninsula.  Walter disembarks on 19 October 1917, probably setting foot on a foreign land for the first time.  There is little fighting to be done over the winter, and political disarray ensues almost immediately, as General Maude, who has been commanding the British troops in Mesopotamia, dies of cholera.  He is replaced by General William Marshall, who halts operations for the winter, meaning that Walter's introduction to Arabia is a relatively quiet affair.

Walter's role in the Royal Garrison Artillery is as a gunner, firing the “big guns”.  Consequentially – and very fortunately – this means he sees limited, if any, frontline combat.  Positioned far behind the fighting, the artillery is responsible for softening-up enemy defences, by shelling targets according to map coordinates and information wired to them by pilots from the Royal Flying Corps.  Being a gunner is not without its hazards, however – Walter suffers a partial loss of hearing from which he will never recover, and has even managed to receive a sting from a scorpion during his posting.

Winter gives way to spring 1918, and Walter is posted to 394th siege battery, joining them on 2 March.  Walter and his battery sees action at Hīt, Khan al Baghdadi and Kifri.  Hīt is a bloodless battle, the Ottomans evacuating before a shot is fired, whilst at Khan al Baghdadi, the artillery battery supports an offensive that sees Allied troops dig in behind Ottoman lines.  When the city is attacked, the Ottoman troops evacuate, falling straight into Allied hands, with 5,000 prisoners taken.  Kifri barely gets a mention in the history books, but is reported in the New Zealand Herald on 6 May 1918:

Following Kifri, Walter embarks at Maqal (now a suburb of Basrah) for another trip around the Arabian Peninsula, as the battery moves to Egypt, arriving at Suez on 17 May 1918.  Then it's onwards to Tul Karen in Palestine, then Haifa, Surafend (now Tzrifin), then back to Kantara as the war draws to a close.  As fate has it, Walter misses the Armistice, suffering a bout of influenza that means he is absent from 28 October to 30 November 1918.  Returning to fitness, he rejoins his battery in Kantara, and moves with them to Ismailia, Egypt, where he remains through the start of 1919, as monthly demobilisation slowly reduces the numbers.  We have no date for when Walter actually returns home, but presumably it is by May 1919, when the 394th siege battery is disbanded.  At this time, Walter is transferred to class “Z” Army Reserve, his demobilisation papers instructing him, in the event of re-ignition of the war, to report immediately to Plymouth.

Walter Henry Albert Sillence was my great grandfather.  On return to civilian life, he recommenced his work as a warehouse foreman, supplying meats to the ocean liners of Southampton.  He went on to marry his second wife, Dorothea, and to have one child, my grandma Stella.  Walter and Dorothea lived the rest of their lives in or around the Southampton area.  He died in 1962, decades after a war that had claimed so many lives.  What remains of Walter's army record can be viewed here.

A festival of colour

I was going to write a blog on historic World Cup posters today, but having delved into Brazil's offerings for 2014, I just had to feature these!  Two years ago, the twelve host cities unveiled their publicity posters for the tournament.  I think they're amazing, so full of the colour and vibrancy that I always associate with football's greatest show on Earth, with a bit of wildlife and local culture thrown in for good measure.  If the football's anywhere near as good as the posters, it's going to be one hell of a tournament!

(Source: World Cup Portal)

This blog says "Thank You"

Seventy years ago this weekend past, over 150,000 Allied soldiers left coastal towns and cities across Southern England, bound for Normandy, France.  Their journey was one of liberation, to free the world from the tyranny of fascism, and to put democracy back on the European continent.  For many soldiers, however, this would come at enormous personal sacrifice and, in the hours that followed departure, thousands would die on the beaches code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.  They were men of a dozen different nations, many from the other side of the world, united through a belief in the principle of freedom for all men. Seventy years later on Torquay Seafront, where many thousands of men in the American 4th Infantry Division departed for Utah Beach, we gathered to thank them.

Torquay remembers

This blog wishes to thank the servicemen of all nations who fought for our freedom and our future.  Though many never made it back, we shall not forget their sacrifice, nor will our gratitude diminish through the years.

On the Ferrovia Circumetnea

Our final day of living the Sicilian life sees us once again at Catania’s central railway station for the short trip to Riposto.  It is as if the Italian transport network knows our time is nearly up, and after a week of frustration at its hands, there is one more twist of the knife, the ticket machine swallowing our ten euro note whole.  For Lizzie, it’s the final straw – for me, it’s utterly typical of a system crippled by inefficiency, ramshackle to the very point of collapse, a bit like a smashed pottery vase that has been glued back together with pritt stick.  One thing I shan’t miss is Sicilian public transport.

Unfortunate, then, that for our final day, we’ve chosen to take the Ferrovia Circumetnea, whose beat-up little trains complete a near-full circuit of Mount Etna, starting in Riposto, and ending in the suburbs of Catania.  The guard on board has apparently never heard of tickets before (biglietto, the only word in Italian we were sure we knew!), nor has he heard of Catania, but we do eventually pay our fares, as our little train chugs, mechanically, out of Riposto and up into the lush hills.  It’s amazing at how quickly the urban sprawl falls away, and soon we are passing almond groves, vineyards, and rustic little settlements, all the time ascending.  A glance around the train is something of a surprise – we assumed it would be populated by tourists, but Sicilians in these parts rely on the railway as a means of getting to-and-from the city, and to my eye, we’re the only non-natives on the carriage.

Up into rural Sicily on the Ferrovia Circumetnea

The train has many stops on its long journey around the volcano, and our ticket acts as a “hop-on hop-off” service, so we break the journey at the hill town of Randazzo.  Sleepy, peaceful, and empty are all words that accurately describe the town – there is barely anybody around, save for groups of old men who sit around the squares putting the world to rights, and staring with surprise as we walk by.  Perhaps, after all the places we’ve visited, we’ve finally gone “off the beaten track” and wandered into a world unused to our presence.  Or maybe it’s just because everything is closed, save the local convenience store, and the archaeology museum, which is intriguingly housed in Castello Svevo, a little fortification that once made up a much larger castle.  Inside, ancient vessels, coins, and ornaments present a cute collection, whilst down in the cells, a group of traditional Sicilian puppets are the undoubted highlight.  The museum curator, probably bored rigid in the silence, makes us feel very welcome, and tells us all about the town’s church and its festivals.  Back outside, we eat lunch on Piazza San Martino, making a sharp exit when a huge swarm of bees comes buzzing through the square, no doubt following their queen to pastures new.  If I were a bee, I’d happily stay in Randazzo – it’s pretty, it’s rural, and nothing will ever disrupt its total lack of activity.

Randazzo station

Piazza San Martino with Castello Svevo

Back on the train, the scenery gets serious as we lurch west, and come around the north side of the volcano, where snow still sits on the crags, a brilliant contrast to the dark rock underneath.  Away from the mountain, the undulating landscape stretches off into the distance, green, fertile, and lovely in the summer sun.  We stop at many unnamed little platforms, before entering a landscape populated with pistachio trees.  We don’t get off at Bronte, but the town is famous for the nuts, and around 85% of all pistachio nuts eaten in the whole of Italy are grown and processed here, in these hills.

The north side of Etna

The rolling landscape north of Etna

After Bronte, the train begins a long descent, and then something odd happens; we go underground.  Stranger still, whilst under there, our rural little train pulls into a station akin to a London tube stop.  This unexpected twist is the town of Adrano, which we are told is worth an hour’s stroll, and so we take an escalator up to ground level, and wander into town.  There’s nothing here, save for a small park, a Norman castle and a church (the latter two are closed), and we are quick to retrace our steps back to the tube, where a 45-minute wait gives us a chance to reflect on our week.  Certainly we’ve enjoyed ourselves, but this has not been an easy or relaxing holiday, and I think in many ways, we’re both relieved to be heading back home, having suffered too long in the heat, and fallen victim too often to Sicilian inefficiency and inconsistency.

Adrano's Norman castle

After Adrano, and our reappearance in the open air again, the landscape becomes slowly less dramatic, steadily more ugly, and we are soon rattling through the suburbs of Catania.  I’m almost asleep when we finally reach the terminal station, Catania Borgo, and as the travelling crowds quickly disperse (lucky them, they know where they’re going), we are once again left scratching our heads at a map that has consistently failed to get us where we want to be.  In the end, we shove it back in the bag and follow our noses, down unnamed streets, across unsigned squares, dodging traffic and sweltering under a ceaseless sun.  It is an ending that perfectly encapsulates what our week has all been about – indeed, what I think Sicily is all about – to forget everything you know about anything, to throw caution into the wind, to leave it all up to fate, and to wait and see what ends up happening.  It may well be that we return from Sicily with a more fatalistic approach than when we arrived; but perhaps that’s just how you become when you've lived a few days in the shadow of a great, active volcano.

The ancient Greek jewel of Siracusa

Siracusa, Sicily, arguably the most historic city on the island, if not in the whole Mediterranean, greets us with a rather smutty introduction, our train reaching its terminus station following mile-upon-mile of dirty, suffocating, petrochemical plants.  It's not quite the welcome we expected from a city dubbed "more Greek than ancient Greece", but we arrive in good spirits and set off for the Neapolis, an archaeological park north of the city centre.  The sun beats down early.  The roads are not signposted.  The city's street layout is in stark contrast to that in the guidebook.  The pavements give way, without warning, to wide roads of heavy traffic.  We take several wrong turns.  An elderly couple point us in the right direction, but even when we think we've found the site entrance, all we've actually found is a local market.  Astoundingly, getting to one of the island's most famous tourist attractions is made just about as difficult as it could possibly be.  Even when we finally get there, the ticket office is nowhere near the park, but a quick glance around reveals exactly why things are the way they are - the infrastructure for Neapolis has been purely set up to cater for the coach tour.  There are no independent travellers here, so there is nothing to assist them - why would anyone in their right mind try and walk here from the railway station after all?

Parco Archeologico della Neapolis sits in an enormous site, about a twenty-minute walk from central Siracusa, and contains the monumental remains of a once very powerful city.  We've just about beaten the tour groups here, but feeling them hot-on-our-tail, we're quick to make for the most famous site in the complex - the enormous ancient Greek theatre.  Built in the 5th century BC, reconstructed in the 3rd century BC, then modified by the Romans, it is one of the largest ever built by the ancient Greeks, with 67 rows, divided into nine sections, with eight aisles.  It's difficult to see the original edifice, covered as it is with wooden boards for modern performances that no doubt take place here year-round, but you can still get an idea of its complexity and enormity.  What I like best, however, isn't the theatre at all, but rather what lives within, for out of holes in the porous terraces dart colourful little lizards that, by my reckoning, have probably been living on this site since the Greeks first put on shows all those centuries ago.

Ancient Greek inscription at the theatre

A theatre lizard

As it turns out, the authorities at the Neapolis (and just about all the visitors too) are only interested in the theatre, and so we stroll into the nearby ancient Roman amphitheatre without even having to show our ticket.  This, too, is sizeable, but crumbling, overgrown, and far more atmospheric.  Siracusa became a Roman colony in 21BC, and the conquering army wasted no time in building themselves a further entertainment venue.  The amphitheatre is classically Roman, but has a gruesome addition - a square reservoir in the middle of the arena, in which the blood and bodies of wild beasts and wild men would be swept during barbaric competitions.  It is said that the weak and enfeebled from the audience were allowed to make their way up to this reservoir at the end of the spectacle, and drink from it, the belief being that the blood of the vanquished would make them strong again.  Somewhat disgusted, we leave, running almost immediately into a stall selling fresh blood-red orange juice.  Putting the matter of gladiatorial combat behind us, we enjoy a refreshing drink in the company of an eccentric accordionist, who provides one of those holiday moments you just don't forget.

Siracusa's Roman amphitheatre

The old town of Siracusa, called Ortigia, sits across a bridge on a small island jutting out into the sea.  We make our way there via the Catacombs of San Giovanni, an underground honeycomb in which there were once several hundred burials.  Legend has it that Saint Paul himself stopped and preached in one of the crypts on his way from Malta to Rome (Acts 28:12 states: "We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days"), and it is well established that this is one of the earliest Christian sites in Europe, featuring many ancient tombs and frescoes.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the bodies were removed during the Second World War, when Siracusans used the space to shelter from the relentless Allied bombings of 1943, but one nonetheless gets a sense of both spirituality and mortality.

The church of San Giovanni (St. John)

Ortigia comes as something of a relief after another battle with the Sicilian road system, and by the time we get to the island, we're almost too tired to explore.  Pizza revives us, and we go in search of the Temple of Apollo, built in the 6th century BC, and something of a prototype for how temples would eventually look across the entire Greek world.  A short walk up the hill, we come to the gentle Piazza Archimede, named in honour of the great Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer who met a sticky end in Siracusa in c.212 BC, when he was killed by a Roman soldier, despite specific instructions that he should not be harmed.  It is then only a stone's throw to the centre of Ortigia, and the magnificent Piazza Duomo, described as the "loveliest square in Sicily."  The cathedral itself (incidentally, the only church on our trip to Sicily to charge entrance, albeit a paltry two euros) is just as historic as every other part of the city, its nave incorporating another very ancient Greek temple, dedicated to Athena, and converted to a church with the advent of Christianity.  

The Temple of Apollo, Ortagia

Piazza Duomo

Beyond the cathedral, the Castello Maniace marks the tip of Ortigia, watching over the sea and keeping the city safe since AD1240.  Nowadays, the site is part-military, part-university, and although it accepts visitors, it only accepts them before lunchtime, and we are left locked out, peering through the bars of a large iron gate.  It scuppers our plan for our remaining couple of hours, so instead we browse the shops of Ortigia, which are situated on curious winding streets, all the time wending our way back to the new part of town.

A street in Ortagia

Siracusa has exhausted us, and we leave with aching legs and mixed feeling about the city.  I love the city's history, its reputation as one of the most important ancient Greek cities on the Mediterranean, and its confident nod to its past, and I do feel we've seen much more of the place than the aforementioned coach tourists.  However, Siracusa has been one very tough nut to crack, and as we pull out of the station and make our way through all those smelly petrochemical plants, I get the distinct feeling we will probably never be back.  Perhaps that fact alone makes it worth visiting this corner of Sicily; or perhaps we should have just done it by coach.

Aci Castello, Acitrezza and around

Following three days of fairly hectic running around, our fourth full day is due to be a leisurely affair, beginning with a trip on Catania's tourist bus, to see the out-lying coastal villages of Aci Castello and Acitrezza.  Touristy it certainly is, but I must admit there is a delight in having the hard work done for you for a change, and we climb with eagerness onto the top-deck.  A very empty bus departs, and we are soon out onto the open road - a term I use loosely, as the roads are never open in Catania, and we crawl out of the city centre and to the coast.

Aci Castello, seven or eight miles out of Catania, is the site of an imposing castle, built in 1076 by the Normans upon an earlier Byzantine fortification.  The castle juts out into a stunningly clear Ionian Sea, and were it not for its great age, it would probably be considered an eye-sore.  Instead, it is iconic; black, harsh, powerful, and totally out-of-keeping with the beautiful Sicilian coast.  Typically Norman, the castle seems virtually impenetrable from sea attack, bearing clear resemblance to the great Norman castles back home.  In all honesty, I never even knew the Normans got this far south, but here's the clear proof.

Aci Castello

Just down the road from the Norman castle lies Acitrezza, a little fishing village with little to keep the visitor, save for its prettiness and its famous columns of basalt rocks that stand just off the coast.  These rocks are known as the "isole dei ciclopi" (islands of the Cyclops) and, according to local legend, were flung by Polyphemus, a man-eating giant and Cyclops, in an attempt to strike the ship of Ulysses (Odysseus).  Pope's translation of Homer's Odyssey goes as follows:

"These words the Cyclops' burning rage provoke:
From the tall hill he rends a pointed rock;
High o'er the billows flew the massy load,
And near the ship came thund'ring on the flood.
It almost brushed the helm, and fell before:
The whole sea shook, and refluent beat the shore.

A larger rock then heaving from the plain,
He whirled it round - it rung across the main:
It fell and brushed the stern: the billows roar,
Shake at the weight, and refluent beat the shore."

The stacks of Acitrezza

All knowledge of Greek mythology already used up (and the Odyssey has made its way sharply up my reading list!), we hop aboard our bus and turn back towards Catania, all to the tune of commentary from the tour guide.  We see a few new streets, but one sight makes my heart leap - the official club shop of Calcio Catania, the city's Serie A football club, which I have been looking for since day one.  We can't stop the bus, but making a mental note of where it was on Via Etnea, we return that afternoon, and I umm-and-arr, before choosing Catania's away shirt, which is white with a blue and red cross.  Even better, as it is last season's stock, it's for sale at only 15 euros, although the cashier has apparently never heard of cash, let alone change (the smallest note in her till is twenty euros, and no coins!) and chaos ensues, not for the first time at a cash desk in Sicily.

Calcio Catania, the city's football club

Following this retail success, we wander down Via Etnea, stop for a gelato brioche, and then find the city's Roman amphitheatre open for a stroll.  Only a small part of the structure now remains, but it is preserved in the very centre of Piazza Stesicoro, surrounded by traffic, almost an inconvenience.  Inside, stray cats sleep, and we are the site's only visitors, having the freedom to roam around the ancient corridors and rooms, although I feel there's something a little creepy about the place, as large gates shut off tunnelled sections that continue under the modern buildings and, staring through the bars and into the dark, I get the distinct feeling we're not quite alone.

Catania's Roman Amphitheatre

Exploring the amphitheatre

Our evening in Catania is another quiet affair, and as we have a busy day ahead, it's a simple stroll to a nearby restaurant for some first-class Sicilian food.  Pasta all round, Italian wine and beer, and a soporific atmosphere complete the most restful, least hassled day of our trip.

A picturesque restaurant