Dear David, 08 February 2012
Firstly I would like to apologise for leaving it so long to pass on this story, it’s something I always wanted to do, but the notes I was passed by one of your assistants, at the end of the service in Wokingham in December 2005, somehow slowly progressed from beside table to the back of a draw –where I chanced to see it this morning.
I attended the service with my sister, we had always had an interest in spiritualism; our Grandmother Nancy Sheen, was very involved and worked with Doris Stokes for many years. But I had never been to a service, although my sister had attended one or two. You spoke to my sister, and described a person we were fairly sure was our Grandmother and then moved on to me, asking if I was looking into someone, a relative who may have been in the army? Well this got my attention as I was looking in to the military career of my Great Grandfather on my Father’s side; Thomas Jones. I had had some success in this investigation, I had found most of his medal cards online via the National Archives medal rolls. My Dad has these medals, in fact when I decided to research my Great Granddad, it was from these medals I had taken his name and regimental number. I say some success because one medal card eluded me; the Territorial Service Efficiency Medal, awarded for long service –my Great Granddad had initially joined the TA London Regiment early in 1914 and had served right through to 1937 obtaining the rank of Regimental Sgt. Major.
You went on to tell me the person I was looking into was there in spirit, and his name was Jim or James. I explained that, no the gentleman that I was investigating was named Thomas, –I was sure, as I had seen his name on the medals and cards etc.-you explained that this chap was adamant, and that his name was James, you also went on to mention some other information, possibly Africa and tanks.
On the way back from the service my sister said to me that the name James did ring a bell, so on my return to the house I logged on to the National Archives and searched for James Jones along with his regimental number 1964, and to my amazement the final medal card I had been unable to track down appeared. This made no sense to me whatsoever, how can a soldier be in the same regiment, with the same regimental number, but have two different names? So I contacted my Farther and told him what had happened, he went quite for a moment and said that he had heard something about it, but would have to call his older sister to see if she remember. Anyway a few days later my Farther called and told me the story:
My Great Granddad, had been a soldier all his life, had actually been in the army prior to 1914, he was originally based up North –nobody remembers the regiment – but the story goes, that he was Sergeant in this particular regiment, and that at some point the army had been called in to control protestors/marchers during a period of civil unrest. My Granddads platoon was ordered to fire on the protestors, which he and many other (if not all) refused to do. Refusing an order was a Court Martial offence, so he deserted and came down South, settling in Fulham. At the start of the War he of course wanted to join up, but couldn’t as he was wanted for desertion. So he joined under his brother Thomas’s name, as a private once again, and served right through the First World War, winning the Military Medal at the Somme, and reaching the rank of Sergeant once again. At some point during or after 1916 an armistice was offered to all soldiers who had previously been deserters and a joined up under aliases. My Great Granddad took this opportunity to set the record straight; changing his name from Thomas to James, hence the different names on the cards.
For me this was irrefutable proof that you were talking to my Great Granddad, you knew his real name though, when I did not.
Kind Regards
Barry Sheen
