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FEATURE
‘And We Were Young’
Colin Pendrill, the School’s former Head of History, outlines what to expect in his book about Oundle and the Great War
Of course, there were deaths. More than 267 Old Oundelians died as a result
of the conflict, their young lives cut short by service to their country. The average age of Oundle’s ‘Fallen’ was just 23 years and one in four of those
served in the War and survived the conflict, only to be cut down by the flu pandemic, weeks after the Armistice. As we explore the life and times of the boys, we find related tales of tragedy and achievement. One father was killed by a pheasant
who joined up, most as junior officers, would be killed.
In this book unfold many individual tragedies played out across the globe. One boy was consumed by a crocodile as the men under his command attempted a retreat across a river in Portuguese East Africa. Another, stranded in the Libyan desert, shot himself in an attempt to save the life of his mechanic. A third, actually a civilian, drowned when his ship was torpedoed by a German U- boat in the Eastern Mediterranean. Eight Oundle families lost two sons;
two families – the Burrells and the Armitages – lost three. Spare a thought for the Grummitt parents from Yorkshire. Their two sons
long before the War began, another won a Nobel Prize for Physics, months after his son’s death at Gallipoli.
Aside from the many harrowing tales of death and destruction, And We Were Young also offers stories of life behind the lines: the games of rugby and football; the letters and parcels from home; the training- camp shooting range where a senior officer failed to hit the target; the airman, Cecil Lewis, surviving a series of dog-fights; and Eric Yarrow’s batman bringing his early-
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THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018