Remembering Grandpa

George Edgar Slack always known as Edgar also Pater and Grandpa, my Mother's Father, he was born in 1899 and served in the Navy in Ww1 from 1917-1919 (although I remember stories of him joining earlier - of him going at 15 and lying about his age but that's not what it says on this document), he is somewhere in this sea of faces, I've pored over it with a magnifying glass but I can't find him.

In Ww2 he served in the home guard as he was too old to fight, his company ENNA which designed and manufactured nursery furniture and I believe the first Zimmer frame joined the war effort by manufacturing cylindrical bomb carriers.

When I was helping my Mother move house I went through an old filing cabinet and found this newspaper from VE Day, along with his home guard papers and papers relating to the purchase and repair of a gun for Home guard use etc etc....

My cousin Sophie says
'He was a 'sparks', working the radio on a ship - he already knew the Morse Code as he had taught himself from an encyclopedia. Lovely to see the pics. Thanks for posting them. He was very brave.'

My Aunt Jojy says
'What a great idea - it was lovely to read about grandpa. (First I called him Daddy, then Pop, Grandpa and occasionally Edgar!)
Here is some further information. During the first world war, he spent his time on fishing trawlers which were working in the North Atlantic. His role was to keep watch for shipping movements and to radio the details back to England. He spoke of the very rough life of trawlermen facing incredibly long hours of work, dangerous and exhausting conditions and violent storms in relatively small boats.'

I will also add that his favourite hymn was 'For those in peril on the sea' and after his remains were cremated my Grandmother Joy went out on a little boat just with one man to row it and scattered his ashes in the sea as per his wishes.


He died when I was 14 so I remember him well, he commanded respect, always wore a 3 piece suit, took photos with flashes that exploded, presided over family gatherings with a sense of occasion, smoked cigars and a pipe, had an infectious laugh which he would struggle to talk through which always made everyone else laugh along with him, he hated to lose at games and was very strict but I also remember sitting in the kitchen with him staring into the coals in the Wood burner and him teaching me to look for faces.

Here are his toy soldiers I blipped some time ago.

Rip Grandpa and thankyou for your contribution to the war effort xxx