This is a transcript of an interview conducted by Age Exchange as part of the Children of the Great War project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Age Exchange is a member of The Imperial War Museum First World War Centenary Partnership. www.childrenofthegreatwar.org.uk www.age-exchange.org.uk If you wish to contact Age Exchange about this contribution, or access other archive material from its the Children of The Great War project, please email greatwar@age-exchange.org.uk Title About: The story was shared at: The Diplock family and the Great War; from south London to the Somme John Diplock & David Diplock Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice, Kent, UK On: Wednesday 9 th April 2014 By: AE Reference: Kathleen Betts GBH006 INTERVIEW WITH KATHLEEN BETTS INTERVIEWER: Who are we talking about, Kathleen? Kathleen Betts: John Diplock he was my cousin, whom I never ever met. I don t know if he lived in Greenwich or Lewisham, because his parents lived in Greenwich, but in one document I ve seen, it lists the address as Lewisham, so I don t really know. I only know I had a cousin, and I have been out to his grave it was a bit of a mystery to me why he wasn t living at home, but I never ever found that out, because nobody spoke about him, and I was the youngest member of all the grandchildren So he was the eldest grandchild? He was the eldest, and I was the youngest and he was killed before I was ever born. Where did you grow up? I was actually born on Brockley; we left Brockley when I was a year old, and I was brought up in Charlton Village So was the story of John in the First World War something that was handed down through the family? Oh yes we always knew about John, but it wasn t until my eldest son took me to France about ten years ago, that we found and visited the grave And where is the grave? Northern France, [somewhere close to Bonn]. He is listed on the Commonwealth War Graves website So he died at the Somme?

He did. Do you know if he was an enlisted man, or if he volunteered? Well, he must ve volunteered, because, first of all, he was out there when he was sixteen; he must ve volunteered and said he was eighteen. And his father met him out there, and sent him home when he was sixteen, going by what I was told. I don t know why he didn t live at home. When he died, the address he was listed at was Brockley, and my aunt [his mother] lived in Greenwich Well, I suppose it s very common for people to have signed up underage, but And I say, I never knew very much about John, I was young, and I just didn t ask but they had his medals. As a kid, I can always remember going to my aunt s, and there was this frame, with the big medallion with his name, and his medals, and a photograph of John. My mum had a photo of John too. Do you know what regiment he was in? He was in the City of London Fusiliers, according to the Commonwealth War Graves website. What about John going back to France? So he got sent home, but he went back, obviously Yes he obviously went back, but what I can t make out about it; he wasn t living at home! I mean, he was only young, and it was unusual not to live at home in those days as a young person, although they left school at thirteen Yes, well it would have been unusual to leave home at that time before you were married; or unless you had been transferred somewhere to do with work Well, my uncle wet to get him from France when he was sixteen then he went back to France when he was eighteen; and that s when he was killed. He was only just over eighteen. He was only there for three days And even eighteen was young nineteen, at one point, was supposed to be the conscription age, but it probably dropped as the War went on There was always a mystery about John not many people in the family ever spoke about John, and when I was still at school and was inquisitive about things, asking questions; they just seemed to give you any old answer, and that was it! [laughs] You can only speculate sometimes I suppose, the fact that someone died at such a young age isn t spoken about, because it makes the family sad to even think about Well his mother was a very peculiar person [both laugh]. In what way? She was a bit she was very funny [both laugh]. You see, because we lived near the cemetery, always on a Sunday because people always used to go to the cemetery on Sundays (there was quite a lot of my father s family buried in Charlton cemetery) we used to have all of these old aunts come for a cup of tea on a Sunday, so that s how I [knew her]. People always used to come round. But I always used to have to go and visit my grandmother which I hated because she was an old so-and-so [both laugh] You see, my mother s aunt, married my father s brother; because this aunt of my mother s was only about six months older than her. And she was the one that I really kept in touch with. My mother s family came from Lowestoft, and came down to London to the Isle of Dogs for her father s work. He was a tinsmith...

Well, the fashion for finding out about families is relatively new this trend for family history research. Presumably in a family of that size, quite a lot of members would have been involved in the First World War Well my dad, John s dad, and his other brothers probably one worked at the Woolwich Arsenal, and the other lived in Swindon and worked on the Railway, but I don t know if they went [Kathleen s] dad was a Territorial Soldier, so he went into the War straight away And when you said John was a professional soldier, was that because he was in the Territorials? I don t know Is he in a marked grave, at the Somme? Yes we haven t got a picture of him, which is a sad thing. So he joined up underage, went to France; his dad I think was in a different battalion of the Fusiliers, but went to France, and met him That s amazing that they met, amongst all of those men [Kathleen s grandson]: All I know is that his father met him in France, and sent him home; that can t ve been easy because he couldn t have just said: Oi! I want you home. There would have had to been presumably a call to inquiry, and decisions would have had to have been made I still can t work out why he didn t live at home. But then at 18 went back we surmise, that because he had already been trained that he wouldn t have had to go through basic training again, went back to France and within three days was killed in action. It was probably about ten weeks before the end of the War. He was killed in August 1918. [Kathleen s son]: Before the internet, we phoned them up, about 15 years ago, and they gave us all this information. I was really chuffed to have all of this information, his home address, everything. I went round to the fellow in the next office and said: Look what I ve found! and he said You re pulling my leg, aren t you? he said I lived five doors away when I was a kid! [All laugh]. It is extraordinary to imagine that scene, of the father seeing the son in France whether he knew he was there, or didn t know he was there, and just seeing him there, in uniform The palaver to get him home What about your father [to Kathleen]. Did he ever talk about the War? Not really, I know he was in France, but I don t think he would have been there long, as he lost the top of his finger and they sent him home. And he never went back. He lost the top of three of his fingers. [Kathleen s grandson]: When he was in hospital, Nan [Kathleen] used to bring him in a file to remove the bone that kept growing out of the top of his finger! So he was effectively invalided out of the War? [Kathleen s grandson]: Yes, when they were invalided out, they were given the silver War badge to indicate they had served. Otherwise, people thought they were shirking. He also got the 1914-1915 star, which indicated that he would have went out probably at the end of 1915, end of November What was his full name? David Diplock. Just David. Never had a middle name, just plain David. That s why none of you [Kathleen s children] have middle names, because I don t believe in giving them [laughs]

[Kathleen s grandson]: We had miniatures made of his medals, for Nan to wear on remembrance Sunday, as the real ones are too heavy. The Victory medal, the Peace medal, the 1914-1915 medal. Although he was discharged from War service, he was still a TA soldier. I suppose once you ve lost [the tips of your fingers], you lose the ability to shoot guns and things [Kathleen]: He had a problem with his eye, too. He had whooping cough when he was quite young, and it affected one of his eyes. One of his eyes didn t open right, fully, and when he was gassed in that eye, he lost the sight in it So he was gassed as well? Did he fight in France, on the Western Front? He must ve been close to the Belgian border, because he got close and friendly with a Belgian family, where he stayed [Kathleen s grandson]: Yes, those were the letters that Uncle Bert destroyed. There was correspondence from the family in Belgium. That s way off the Somme, isn t it? But he survived, which is a wonderful thing, he survived being gassed, and the injury he had to his hand [Kathleen]: I know he didn t serve as long in France as I d thought he did, but I can t remember know how long it was [Kathleen s grandson]: Well, you tend to think everybody who went into the First World War fought all the way through from 1914 until November 1918 [all laugh]. Invariably, they didn t, they fought for periods Or that they all lived in mud and rain constantly, whereas there were of course different seasons, different weather, different locations [Kathleen]: See, I wasn t born until after the First World War, and I was only very young when he used to talk about it Of course, a lot of men never talked about it; at least, he did talk about it, sometimes [Kathleen s grandson]: The only story I ever remember him telling me about the War was the one about the rescuing of the horses when they had a fire in the sort of tented area [Kathleen]: We never used to like to get him talking about the War, because once he d started, he never stopped! [All laugh]. [Kathleen s grandson]: When we visited him in hospital, down in Medway, I remember him telling us about this officer who got the DSA for this whatever it was and he was in the [Officer s]mess [at the time]. And granddad and his men saved all the horses from this fire, and he [David] didn t even get a mention in dispatches. Now, knowing Granddad Diplock, that would ve been a typical hard-done-by sort of thing [all laugh]. There must ve been an awful lot of soldiers when you know that the training of the officers by modern standards, was very incompetent, largely. Anyone who came back from that war, you tend to feel are quite lucky. Once or twice, we ve interviewed families who have said, i.e, four brothers went to War and all came back, which statistically, seems astonishing [Kathleen s grandson]: We have two people on the War memorial in Welling; nine brothers went to war, and in the press, in the 1930s, the father was quoted as saying I was very lucky; that only two of

my nine sons who fought, were killed. It seems really odd, to express it in that sort of way. Today, you would be heavily grieving over the loss of just one Maybe you had to put it in perspective in order to keep it from destroying your life [ENDS] Copyright Age Exchange Theatre Trust Ltd. 2014 (a company limited by guarantee) Registered in England No. 1929724. Registered Office: 11 Blackheath Village, London SE3 9LA Registered as Charity No: 326899