My Father a Scot, My Mother French , livre ebook

M y F ather a S cot , m y M other F rench
Before and After Two World Wars
Ian MacCabe
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
M y F ather a S cot , m y M other F rench Synopsis Preface Chapter I Social and Economic Background of Scotland in the 19 th Century Chapter II Origins of Nick’s Family Chapter III World War I Enlistment Gallipoli Convalescence in Scotland 1915–1916 Fighting in the Somme as from 1917 The End Of Nick’s Service In The Somme Convalescence In Lancashire - Demobilisation Chapter IV Post-World War 1 After demobilisation Moving to France to work with UWC Chapter V Return to Great Britain Arrival in Brighton The 2 nd World War Peacetime Thoughts about my father “Nick” Chapter VI My Mother Jeanne and Her Family Jules Jacques Combe Juliette Combe, Jules Combe’s eldest daughter, (my Grandmother) Jeanne Louise Gastal, my Mother “Jeanne” Chapter VII My Brother Douglas Douglas – Early days Chapter VIII Ian (author) Chapter IX My Parents’ Brothers and Sisters Nick’s brothers and sisters Jeanne’s brothers and sisters Chapter X Conclusions Annex World Wars 1 and 2 – Souvenirs Gallipoli and Dardanelles Campaign 1915 Nick’s World War 1 Convalescence Album and Souvenirs Other Family War Records Peter MacCabe Edouard Gastal Oswald Buchard Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium Edouard Gastal (“Doudou”) – French 279th Infantry Regiment: Jules Jacques Combe - Personal Records Grand Duc Héritier de Saxe Weimar to J. Combe "La Triomphe de La Démocratie" translated by J.C “The Creation Of The Bicycle, story by Jules Combe” Letters to his daughter, J. J. Combe “Tante Jeanne” Juliette Gastal to her sister “Tante Jeanne”, July 15, 1928 1920 – 1938 Family Photos 1920–1939: Business Photos and Correspondence 1938 and Onwards: Family in Britain Les Croquis (Sketches) by Jeanne My parents’ Tombstone at Moulescombe, Brighton Hommage Bibliography
Ian MacCabe, born in France in 1934 of a Scottish father and a French mother, moved to England in 1938 with his family due to the impending German invasion. He worked in an insurance company and then took up accounting. He moved to France in 1958 and worked with British auditors before joining IBM European HQ in Paris and after eight years left to become a financial director in different international corporations. Upon retirement, he did research on his parents’ origins and their careers, making use of important family archives that he inherited in order to write this book. He is currently translating this book into French. He occasionally writes some poetry as an amusement.
The beautiful hand drawn sketches that make up the cover were created by the author’s mother, Jeanne Gastal.
I dedicate this book to those working for world peace and in the first instance to peace and unity in Europe, as well as to the educators to assist today’s youth to seek to know and understand better the people from other lands than their own and to explain lessons drawn from history.
Copyright Information ©
Ian MacCabe (2020)
The right of Ian MacCabe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528982092 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528982108 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
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I wish to mention the amenities and helpful assistance provided by the organisations and staff of The National Library of Scotland, The Mitchell Library of Glasgow, The Registrars in Glasgow and Edinburgh, The Edinburgh Castle Museum Library, The Highland Light Infantry Museum, The National Archives at Kew, The Imperial War Museum, The British Library, The Brighton and Hove Libraries. I am also indebted to Professor William Knox of St Andrews University for his essay that enlightened me on the social and economic evolution of Scotland in the 19th century of which my paternal great- grand parents from Ireland were truly living examples at that time.
Synopsis
This book depicts the origins of our two European families, (Scottish/Irish and French/Swiss) both affected by the great war of 1914–1918 and the events that followed. It is not an autobiography, but it expresses what I witnessed, my observations and my research results. It also explains how destiny provided me with a double culture.
Based on extensive research I undertook in Scotland and England, I have reconstructed my father’s family origins, and I have made a summary of the Scottish economic and social development as from the middle of the 19 th century and described the environment of Nick’s earlier years before giving full details of his involvement in the First World War and his subsequent career and family life.
There were nine children in each of my parents’ families. My father, Dominic, known as “Nick” in the family, was a Catholic, my mother, Jeanne, was a Protestant, but religion was never a problem in the house. My paternal great grandfather came from Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century at the time of famine and extreme poverty for the people in order to work in the Lanarkshire coalmines. Two generations later, my father began as an apprentice at the age of 14 in the Clydebank shipyards. The history of the family corresponds exactly to the general evolution included in the description of the social and economic environment of Scotland in the nineteenth century.
At the age of 19, Nick volunteered for the HLI (Highland Light Infantry Regiment) in August 1914. He fought in the Dardanelles in 1915 (July to October). Having found his battalion’s company, I have been able to trace and describe in detail the events involving him through the campaign’s official War Diaries and other research. Dysentery led to his return to Scotland for treatment in Edinburgh until the latter part of 1916. Nick left an interesting set of poems, drawings and photos collected essentially from his fellow soldier patients and nurses from October 1915 until the autumn of 1916. On January 2, 1917, he was sent to fight in the Somme and I have detailed the official military movements and conditions in which he was involved. In March 1917, his injuries sent him back to the UK and demobilisation in April 1918. His elder brother, Peter, had enrolled in the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment and was killed at Ypres on November 16, 1914.
As for my mother, Jeanne, her grandfather, Jules Jacques Combe was Swiss and had spent 18 months at Heidelberg as Tutor for the children of the Grand Duke Heritor of Saxony. I show a testimonial and a letter in later years from the Grand Duke. In Belgium, Jules set up a printing company and worked also as a translator French/English/German. Later, he settled in Nanterre, France, where his daughter Juliette, who had married a Frenchman, gave birth to nine children, my mother Jeanne being the eldest. Jules Jacques Combe translated into French and published the French version of Andrew Carnegie’s book “The Triumph of Democracy”; he also wrote stories for the children of the family and long and interesting letters to his unmarried daughter, Jeanne Jacqueline (my mother’s “Tante Jeanne”). He also had a great interest in scientific matters. For this reason, I have brought to light some of his achievements based on original documents I possess.
In the early part of the 1914–1918 War, Jeanne was a “gouvernante” (an au-pair girl) for a family in Bristol. Her eldest brother, Edouard “Doudou”, a wood sculptor at the École Boulle (a famous art school in Paris), was killed on March 25, 1918, in the Somme battle. I possess many of his moving handwritten letters with envelopes sent from the trenches to his mother and family up until three days before his death. His name figures on the Nanterre war memorial as well as on that of his former art school. It is interesting to see the official documents and how the French administration treated the question of soldiers killed in action.
After demobilisation in 1918, Nick joined the large Singer factory at Clydebank, went to night school and became a textile engineer. He settled in France in 1920 working for an American textile company, travelling all over Europe and the Middle East until 1938. Nick met Jeanne in Nanterre, and they married in 1921. Their first child, Peter, was born in November 1922. In 1925, his brother, Douglas, was born. Tragically, in 1930, on March 24, Peter died of meningitis at the age of seven. By coincidence, I was born in 1934 on the same day, March 24. During the inter-war period, Nick was constantly travelling in Europe and the Middle East in conditions quite different to those of today. There are good photo souvenirs of family summer holidays spent in Normandy.
The darkening clouds menacing war spread from Germany to the rest of Europe and from what Nick himself witnessed in Germany, led to a great extent to Nick’s decision in 1937 to return to Britain; we finally did in September 1938. After arrival in the UK, there was with former colleagues of the company, an exchange of a few enlightening letters about the drama that was taking place in the period just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.
In the Second World War, Nick participated actively in the local civil defence system in Brighton as an Air Raid Warden. My brother Douglas was eight years ol