Publications
Roots of iron, by Malcolm Rickson, published June 2008 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 18 no. 2, article, pp.85-89) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15860] & The Keep [LIB/508969] & CD SFH40 from S.F.H.G.
Preview:My interest in family history was sparked by two framed scrolls which hung either side of the barometer on the walls of my grandmother's house where I grew up. The scrolls and the medals below them have long gone; sold when toy grandmother died in 1966 and her tied house reverted to the Ashburnham Estate in East Sussex. But I carried the picture of those scrolls in any mind for 40 years until a change in personal circumstances allowed me the time to delve into the lives of the people they commemorated and the family from which they came.
The scroll commemorated the deaths in action of Lieutenant Stephen George HOBDAY DCM and Corporal Walter James HOBDAY; Stephen in October 1916 in the last stages of the Battle of the Somme and Walter in June 1916 defending the city of Ypres in Flanders. 'Uncle Stibby' and 'Uncle Walt' were often mentioned by my grandmother as examples of selflessness and courage. They had emigrated to Canada and in the early 1900s had found good jobs in the Montreal area but when war came in 1914 they volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and served with great bravery on the Western Front. Why did they go to Canada? What family roots gave them the strength of character to venture overseas to a new life, to face adversity and then to give their lives for a cause they believed in?
The scroll commemorated the deaths in action of Lieutenant Stephen George HOBDAY DCM and Corporal Walter James HOBDAY; Stephen in October 1916 in the last stages of the Battle of the Somme and Walter in June 1916 defending the city of Ypres in Flanders. 'Uncle Stibby' and 'Uncle Walt' were often mentioned by my grandmother as examples of selflessness and courage. They had emigrated to Canada and in the early 1900s had found good jobs in the Montreal area but when war came in 1914 they volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and served with great bravery on the Western Front. Why did they go to Canada? What family roots gave them the strength of character to venture overseas to a new life, to face adversity and then to give their lives for a cause they believed in?