Oldfield Park Junior School (Bath) WW1 Memorial Project
St Saviour's School (Bath) WW1 Memorial
This memorial is displayed in the old part of the school and the Head, Mr O'Shea, was kind enough to show me the memorial when I called at the school.
Mr O'Shea was also able to relate an interesting history in relation to the memorial. The lower part of the memorial comprises a small compartment, bearing the inscription
"Went the day well? We died and never knew:
But well or ill, England, we died for you!"
But well or ill, England, we died for you!"
This compartment features a lock; the keyhole is just visible below the poppy in the photograph above. When Mr O'Shea joined the school, no key was to be found. The lock was picked, however, and the compartment was found to contain two scrolls. The first scroll named all those old boys of the school who had gone to serve in the Great War, including those who returned. The second was a list of those whose subscriptions (donations) had supported the creation of the memorial itself.
The verse, by the way, is a slight misquote of an epitaph written by John Maxwell Edmonds that appeared in The Times in 1918. The original contained the line "...Freedom, we died for you!"
The Memorial Oak Tree
In November 2014, the Bath Chronicle carried the following story (with apologies for the pop-ups). Pupils at St Saviour's School had uncovered the story of a commemorative oak being planted on the recreation ground at Larkhall in 1919 and wanted to know more:
In 2015, the story developed as the oak suspected to be the commemorative oak in question was found to be diseased:
There was a happy ending in November 2015 when pupils planted a replacement tree, complete with memorial palque. A wonderful commemoration and a lovely community project that those children will always remember!