West Auckland is a village in County Durham through which the A 68 road passes north/south. Its War Memorial is a repurposed water fountain (originally known as ‘The Pant,’ built in 1848 and redicated for Queen victoria’s 60th Jubilee) and is situated on West Auckland’s West Green. A War Memorial bench  is to the left below and the structure is flanked by two ‘ghost soldiers’:-

Wording on plaque on ‘The Pant’:-

War Memorial dedication:-

Name plaques. Northern Ireland commemoration on right hand one:-

Iwema Steenhuis (see previous posts) has several exhibits relating to childhood.

Model of schoolroom:-

Vintage children’s books:-

Toy vehicles:-

I just loved those dinky caravans on the second top shelf above so here’s a close-up:-

There was also domestic memorabilia.

Inkwells and desktop paraphernalia:-

Inkwell partly in the shape of a Great War tank (a French Renault, I think):-

Old style shop:-

Bowling is a village two miles east of Dumbarton on the A 814 road. It’s probably best known as being the western end of the Forth and Clyde Canal.

Its War Memorial is a stone Celtic Cross on a rough-hewn stone plinth lying at the edge of a small park to the north of the A 814:-

Hamish Hamilton, 2007, 253 p

This is the first book of Barker’s trilogy about alumni of the Slade Art School in the run-up to the Great War. I read the second one, Toby’s Room, before I realised it had this predecessor.

This book is more concerned with Paul Tarrant than Barker’s other two main protagonists, Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville. Paul used a small inheritance from his aunt to enrol at the Slade but the tutor, Henry Tonks, finds his work insipid and Paul begins to doubt his own talent. The slightly older Kit Neville has already had some success as an artist though. Elinor meanwhile has enough trouble dealing with being a woman in a traditionally male enterprise without both the men being attracted to her. She is initially not interested and Paul temporarily takes up with Teresa Halliday, one of the life models, who is escaping from a violent husband.

It is not until the Great War breaks out though, and its scope widens, that the book gets fully into its stride. Barker is clearly comfortable with that war as her subject (as witness her Regeneration trilogy.) Kit and Paul, turned down for war service, sign up to be ambulance drivers with the Belgian Army but are initially used as medical orderlies in field hospitals. Barker’s immersion in the minutiae of the war stands her in good stead here.

In this latter part of the novel a lot of the communication between Paul and Elinor consists of reproductions of their letters to each other. In one of these Elinor notes that the women in her circle keep quiet when men talk about the war (although they’ve not been in it) and compares that to the Iliad, where the girls whom Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel over “say nothing, not a word,” adding, “I don’t suppose men ever hear that silence.” This is a thought Barker would develop in her later Women of Troy books.

Barker’s writing is smooth, almost imperceptible. Accomplished as always.

Pedant’s corner:- Elinor’s hair style is inconsistently described as cropped, bell shaped, or tied back with a ribbon. The knee wound Paul sustains in a bombardment is also seemingly forgotten at times in later passages.

Stirling‘s War Memorial is a stone obelisk on a hexagonal base located in a triangle at the junction of Albert Place and Corn Exchange Road.

From Corn Exchange Road:-

Close up:-

Dedications:-

Name plaques:-

Unveiling infoprmation:-

The hall was built as a memorial to the employees of Tullis Russell & Company who died in the Great War.

An external plaque was unveiled there in November 2023 recording that fact:-

I posted about the 252 Hall before, here.

The memorial, an obelisk embossed with a sword above a square plinth, was originally dedicated for the Great War, the dead of which it commemorated, and stands on a hill with a view down Cowdenbeath’s High Street. There is also a dedication to those who fell in the Second Word War but their names are on a separate memorial in the town.

Cowdenbeath Great War Memorial South Aspect. Names: Adams – Davidson:-

East Aspect. Names: Ferguson – Lister:-

North Aspect. Names: Lockhart – Scott. Cowdenbeath High Street behind:-

West aspect. Names: Scott – Young:-

A Great War 100^th Anniversary Bench and Soldier lies at the end of Cowdenbeath High Street below the hill where the War memorial stands:-

I featured Cowdenbeath’s Second World War memorial here but took this photo of it with added Great War soldier outline and Great War anniversary bench just after I photographed the above:-

Plaque dedicated to the men of St John’s Kirk:-

Burma Star Association flag and plaque. The plaque bears the Kohima Epitaph:-

Upper memorial for the Scottish Area Women’s Royal Army Corps and lower one for the Royal Army Service Corps in both wars:-

Parachute Regiment and British Special Airborne Forces Memorial:-

Tapestry Memorial to 51st Highland Division:-

War Memorial alcove, St John’s Kirk, Perth:-

Great War Memorial (to left above):-

Below the memorial are two Rolls of Honour. The first below takes in Perthshire and also covers World War 2 as may the second:-

Great War Memorial to men connected with St John’s East Parish Church:-

Masonic Great War Memorial:-

The entrance to Dumbarton Castle is up a flight of stairs which has a left turn on the way up. On the wall facing you as you turn is this War Memorial dedicated to the officers and men of the 9th Battalion (Dunbartonshire,) Princess Louise’s Argyll and Sutherland Higlanders:-