The Polish Connection 35

March 1919

As I found out later, I had fainted, and Peter quickly picked me up and put me on the couch. “She's burning up,” he said, or something to that effect, and knowing that I had been exposed to flu, and had nursed Rebecca when she had had it, Beth said she wouldn’t be at all surprised if I had it too. Someone suggested they put me to bed, and someone else went for the doctor. I don’t know the details of this or what happened afterwards. My first real memory of all that time, except for fleeting images, was of John, bending over me, with tears in his eyes saying, “Please get well, my love. I can’t live without you. I don’t care what you've done, but don’t leave me. I do so love you.”

I won’t pretend that I immediately got well, as it was several weeks before I was fully recovered, but all that time John was as kind and solicitous to me as he could be. I found out that after my collapse, the others had gone off to a local hotel, and that Peter and Anna had agreed that they would invite both Rebecca and Beth to go to visit them during the Easter break, the next school holidays. I rather thought I saw John’s sensible plan in that decision, and I thanked him for it. Beth could get to know them again gradually, and with the support of her almost half-sister.

I was nervous when I first felt well enough to have a long conversation with John, nervous because I wouldn’t have blamed him, now that I have recovered, to remember the pain I gave him and think again about staying with me.

“Dearest Barbara,” he said, “how wonderful it is to see you sitting up in bed and feeling like eating again. I can’t tell you how worried I have been about you. We thought we had lost you for awhile there. I sat beside you and held your hand, but I don’t think you knew it.”

“I did know it, John. I think it was your care and love that helped me pull through, and I am so pleased that you took charge of the situation regarding Beth. The idea of her staying with us at least for the rest of this school year, and then getting to know her new family slowly over Easter break, along with Rebecca, is so fitting, and so typical of you, John. You are the sensible one of us, finding the reasonable compromise.”

“Peter is a good man. I was pleased to get to know him. I found that I could talk to him about you without even feeling jealous. And his new wife, Anna, is a wonderful woman too. You would like her if you give yourself a chance. Was it a terrible shock for you?”

“Yes, in that I hadn’t anticipated it, but I certainly expected Peter to marry again sometime, and I am pleased that he has found a woman that is worthy of him. I was more shocked by his plan to take Beth away, and I think that by doing it the way you suggested, that by the time she has to leave, I hope to be able to be more willing to let her go. She is so like my own daughter, John,” and I started to cry again just for a moment.

“And she is like mine too, and we will always have a place for her in our hearts and in our home, when she comes to visit.”

“Do you truly forgive me, John, for what I did to you? I am so sorry. You must believe me.”

“I do believe you, and you don’t need to worry that I will keep harping back to it in moments of stress. We will let what happened in the war years stay there, and get on with our lives starting afresh.”

So we renewed our pledges to each other, just the two of us in bed, but this time I am sure that I will be able to keep mine.

They have started raising subscriptions for monuments dedicated to our brave men of the Marple area and to see the list of those who will never see our beautiful village again, makes me so sad. The Park near the canal will be renamed the War Memorial Park, and the land for the monument was given by the Carver and Barlow families.

At All Saints Church in Marple, there will be another monument, a stone cross set on a stepped base with cast metal plates on the base to name those of Marple who fell in the war. The Inscription will say, To the Glory of God and Sacred to the Memory of Those Marple Men who Made the Supreme Sacrifice in the Great War – 1915-1918. Who Stands if Freedom Falls. Who Dies if England Lives.

And outside the Congregational Church in Marple Bridge there will be a monument, a stone cross, erected by a grateful Township and many sorrowing relatives and friends saying:

They loved not their lives unto the death, Rev 12.11.

To the Glory of God

and in loving memory of those of the Church,

Sunday School, and Brotherhood,

who fell in the Great War 1914 - 1919.

And just up the road here in Mellor, we too are planning a monument.

Greater love hath no man than this

That he lay down his life for his friends

THIS MEMORIAL IS ERECTED IN PROUDAND LOVING MEMORY

OF THE MEN OF MELLOR WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR FREEDOM.

Their names liveth for evermore

Thomas Marsland’s name is on the list – we know his father who works for Hayfield District Council. Alan Sigley is dead. John played cricket in past years with his father. Robert Nield is dead. His mother is in the Women’s Institute with me.

So many names – hundreds of dead from our little community of not that many thousands.

I think I will make this the end of my story. The War is over. Our family is now reunited and hopefully we will all continue to live in peace. Who knows what the future will bring. But at least we are now in a position where we can give happiness a good try.