My Buckley Great Granddads by Eve Dunn: Fig 1. Fred Dunn"

1917

"My Buckley Great Granddads" by Eve Dunn

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Fig 1. Fred Dunn

MY BUCKLEY GREAT GRANDDADS

by Eve Dunn aged 10

My great granddad Fred Dunn was born in a little village in Suffolk in 1889 and

he trained for seven years to be a joiner as a young man. In 1914 World War

One started and he joined the Army to fight the Germans in France and

Belgium. Lots of the fields where they fought had millions of red poppy flowers growing instead of the dandelions and buttercups we have in our fields.

In 1917 the Germans sent poison gas on the wind to the British soldiers and

great granddad Dunn became very ill with a bad chest. He was sent home to

a hospital made in a big house just outside Manchester and there he met

great grandma Florence Balmer from Buckley who was a children's nursemaid

in a big house next door. They fell in love and got married in Buckley just

before Christmas 1917.

Great granddad Dunn had to go back to France until the war came to an

end on 11^th November 1918 and then he came home to live with great

grandma in Buckley. He worked as a joiner on building the Tivoli Cinema

in Buckley, the Majestic Cinema in Chester and the airmens' blocks at RAF

Sealand. He joined the British Legion which had been set up to look after

both the ex-servicemen and the families of dead and wounded soldiers and,

on 11^th November 1921, there was the Armistice Day when the British Legion

sold artificial red poppies to raise money for their work. This work still goes on

today and is called the Poppy Appeal.

Great granddad Dunn became too ill to work in 1934 but still did his British

Legion work looking after their special place called "The Hut" in Church Road,

Buckley where he organised dances and whist drives to raise money. Great

granddad and grandma Dunn had four sons and a daughter and in 1937 he

encouraged their eldest son Frank to join the Air Force. Great uncle Frank

flew out to Singapore in his bomber plane just before the World War Two

started on 3^rd September 1939.

Great granddad Henry Iball was born in Buckley in 1897 and was so keen to

join the Army in 1915 that he lied about his age and told them he was the

minimum age of eighteen when he was really only seventeen. He was known

as Harry Iball and survived the war with no serious injury and came back to

live in Buckley and to marry great grandma Gertrude Price in 1920. Great

granddad Iball then went back to coal mining and worked in the collieries at

Gresford and Llay but became ill with a bad chest like great granddad Dunn

from all the coal dust he breathed in underground while working and he gave

up coal mining in 1941. Great granddad and great grandma Iball had four

daughters and one son and they lived in Church Road, Buckley opposite "The

Hut" so the two great granddads must have met each other some time before

great granddad Dunn died in 1943. Great granddad Iball died in 1957.

After 1941 great uncle Frank had to fight against the Japanese airmen and soldiers but was captured by them in 1942 and shipped to Japan to work in their coal mines. Great granddad and grandma Dunn did not know what had happened to their son Frank and when great granddad Dunn died in February 1943, he still did not know whether Frank was alive or dead. Great uncle Frank did survive the war though just like his father and died in 2006 aged 86.

On Remembrance Day especially our families think of them and the way they all struggled to keep us free and happy.

11 November 2009

Author: Dunn, Eve

My Buckley Great Granddads by Eve Dunn: Fig 1. Fred Dunn"

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