Great Uncle Wally introduced me to Guinness. Well, to be fair Mackeson, its slightly sweeter cousin. A stout more adapted to the tastes of your average seven-year-old.
Those regular Sunday trips during the late 60s and early 70s with my father to see Great Aunt Gussie and Great Uncle Wally were special. Time alone with my dad, who during the week was always working, and time to be with, to me at the time, two very old people who I knew were very important to my father but as a young child I could not work out quite why. They were both a bit of a mystery to me. Both kind, but wrinkled and a bit scary at the same time. Old people can have that effect on the young.
The routine was always the same. They lived on the first floor of a maisonette in Worthing, Sussex. The front door was on the ground floor and the straight steps to their first-floor flat seemed never-ending at the time. A sort of seven-year-old’s Everest. We would convene in their small sixties-styled kitchen. Great Uncle Wally was aways sitting in a soft armchair and Great Aunt Gussie hosted the visits. The cans of Guiness would be produced from a dusty cupboard. One for my dad and one for Gt Uncle Wally then carefully poured into glasses. I would be allowed to share a Mackeson with Gt Aunt Gussie. You have no idea how included I felt right at that moment. Lost, but at the same time knowing that I was part of something. A secret stout society. I would sit quietly, occasionally being allowed a sip of the sweet porter, my small hands wrapped around the glass, supervised of course, quietly listening to the conversation and laughter.
There was a bond between my father and these two old people. I could sense it. Gussie was the last living direct relative on that side of my family, his deceased mother’s sister, and Great Uncle Wally? Well, my father used to tell me, proudly, that Wally was one of ‘Lowthers Lambs’ (1st 2nd and 3rd Southdowns Battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment) I never gave it a second thought at the time, I was just aware it seemed special. Uncle Wally just shrugged it off but the seed had been planted.
Decades later they are now all gone and I find myself wishing they were here to answer my questions. My father and Wally shared a bond in that they had both endured active service. My father as a rating in the Navy during WW2 and Gt Uncle Wally as a private in the Royal Sussex Regiment in WW1. They had a relationship that was comfortable, forged from a shared experience of combat. Different theatres of war but a common bond nonetheless.
To me at the time, through a seven-year-old’s eyes, Great Uncle Wally was an old man. That is it. That is a simple seven-year-old’s perspective, but my father made sure he planted the seeds in my head. I’m now sixty-two year and those seeds my father planted eventually grew to what is now a humbling appreciation of their generation and what they endured.
The following is a very brief resumé of his WW1 service in cold, bleak descriptive terms. Yet the physical and mental suffering he and the thousands of others like him went through is unimaginable. I take my hat off to that entire generation and every time I drink a pint of stout it immediately evokes memories of those very special Sunday afternoons.
Above: Private William Walter FARNFIELD SD1315 13th Royal Sussex Regiment then G/6714 2nd,11th and 9th Royal Sussex Regt. Enlisted Oct/Nov 1914
Above: Photos taken with wife Augusta Field as sweethearts in 1915 and married in 1918
G6300+ numbers indicate he was badly wounded and out of action for some time i.e. struck off their own battalion strength until recovery and then re-posted to another unit.
Photo taken in 1918. On his right arm are two wound stripes, a good conduct stripe on the left and a further unidentified badge.
Wounded in action at Beaumont Hamel, France, 3rd September 1916.
31st July 1917 whilst with the 11th Battalion attacked St Junien as part of the Battle of Passchendaele. This was successful, but they sustained horrendous casualties. He was wounded a second time on either the 31st July or 1st August 1917.
Walter also had a brother who I never met, Richard Farnfield Pte SD2361 12th Battalion Royal Sussex Regt then G/6357 2nd, 9th, 4th and 16th Royal Sussex Regt. Enlisted Oct/Nov 1914. Wounded in action at The Battle of the Boars Head, Richebourg, France 30th June 1916. This is known as ‘the day Sussex died’ and for those interested there is a new memorial in Beach House Park, Worthing and further info on the Royal Sussex Regt on the excellent website, royalsussex.smewebdev.co.uk
‘Now is the time for marching, Now let your hearts be gay,
Hark to the merry bugles, sounding along our way.
So let your voices ring my boys and take the time from me
and I’ll sing you a song as we march along
of Sussex by the Sea
Oh Sussex, Sussex by the Sea.
Good old Sussex by the Sea
and you may tell them all, that we stand or fall
for Sussex by the Sea.’
William Walter Farnfield.
Born: January 1896, Lea, Kent.
Died: March 1976, Worthing, Sussex.
© Oldmanballs 2024
