Heroes and angels

November 4, 2004

MONS AVENUE (Britannia Road)

A NAME remembering a place that became a bloody battleground at the start of the First World War — where young men said later they had been protected by angels.

Troops in Blackfriars Hall, Norwich, in the early days of the First World War. Inset, Britannia Barracks, now Norwich Prison, where many Norfolk men signed up for war — and never returned.

The First World War started on August 4, 1914 — two days later 70-year-old Colonel Alfred Robson hanged himself at his Gorleston home.

He left a note for the coroner saying he felt too old to do anything for his country and only made an additional mouth to feed. “Therefore I had better go at once.”

Across Norwich and the rest of Norfolk the recruiting campaign was launched and thousands of young men were signing up — many of them would never return or came home with appalling injuries.

Not all were enthusiastic.

K Aston, who signed up as a private in the 8th Norfolks, wrote: “This Regiment seems to be composed of the riff-raff of England, mind you, keen men as they show by their drilling, but they smell horribly some of them.”

On August 23, 1914, at Mons, a small Belgian town just north of the French border, the Germans faced the firepower of the British infantry for the first time.

The battle was fought between the British Expeditionary Force of around 65,000 and the 1st German Army of at least 160,000 men.

Thousands of men on both sides were killed. Eventually the British had to retreat — one Norfolk man who did survive, but was wounded, wrote to his wife from hospital.

He was Corporal H G Roberts who described the battle: “I think we lay for about two hours with artillery firing on us. The shells were dropping a foot behind us, some behind us, some in front, and all around us.

“Then they dropped firing a bit so we had to run across the open and get into a lot of trees. It gave the Germans a place to fire at. We were there for about three hours. I put my face into the ground and shut my eyes and said my prayers — thank God, I came out of that all right.”

Cpl Roberts then told how he marched more than 40 miles in the rain and began digging trenches — for the “big battle”.

Remember the likes of him and the thousands of young men from Norwich and Norfolk who never came home from the blood-soaked trenches of the First World War.

Many of them signed up at Britannia Barracks, now Norwich Prison — so close to Mons Avenue.

Remember them and all those who perished fighting for our freedom by buying a poppy.

• With thanks to Norfolk in the First World War by Frank Meeres published by Phillimore at £17.99.
  
  
• The remaining copies of the Evening News Fight for Freedom supplement paying tribute to Norfolk soldiers during the Second World War are now on sale at Prospect House, priced £2. You can also order them by calling Norwich (01603) 772738.

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