A century on the big goodbye for troops recreated

People turned out in force cheering and waving their handkerchiefs aloft as the men, many still teenagers and from the local farming community, left bound for the trenches. Yesterday these emotive scenes were repeated as a re-enactment of the events of September 21 1914 took place exactly 100 years later.

Robert Freeman, Craven and the First World War project officer, said: “These were men who worked on the farms and worked in the community and had never seen war before.

“They were the first volunteers who responded to the call of King and Country. They would have been very young, some of them would have just left school,” he said.

An article from a newspaper describes how the 86 men paraded in the Market Place and after a preliminary drill and other instructions and a parting speech fell in behind Settle Band. They wore a white armlet bearing the words “Kitchener’s Man” in red letters and they were given gifts including meat pies, grapes, a cigar, socks and cigarettes.

The article says of the men: “A great proportion of them were from the country farms and it would be difficult to find a more promising set of recruits.

“Resounding cheers were given for the men, fond farewells were said, the national anthem was sung and amidst the waving of handkerchiefs, the detonation of fog-signals and hearty expressions of goodwill, Settle sent out a body of men to fight for their country of whom the whole district may well be proud.”

Yesterday those poignant scenes were recalled once again when staff and students from The Skipton Academy, along with the Skipton Royal British Legion Band, re-created the “send-off” that the first recruits from Settle received a century earlier.

Events were attended by local resident Dennis Maunders, 90, whose father, Robert Henry Maunders, was one of the first Craven men to enlist. Also present was Henry Bolton whose uncle was one the officers and to whom Geraldine Tunstill, wife of Craven recruiting campaigner Harry Gilbert Tunstill, passed on a photo album with images of the recruitment drive and send-off.

Relatives of a number of other men were also be present, along with Settle’s Town Mayor Ian Robinson.

Mr Freeman said at the beginning of the war many young men thought it was their duty to sign up.

“At the beginning of the war there was a lot of patriotism surrounding the outbreak of war so there was a sense that there was a duty to fight,” he said.

However Mr Freeman said there was some anxiety from local businesses about how they would cope with many of the town’s workforce away. As the carnage mounted so the patriotism of people inevitably waned and conscription was brought in.

Yesterday’s re-enactment saw recruits marching down Settle train station platform, led by the Legion Band, with a rousing speech given by an actor taking the role of recruiting campaigner Harry Gilbert Tunstill.

The event marked the conclusion of a series of special performances of a play, Tunstill’s Men, held in the area, telling the story of wartime Settle. Events are part of the Craven and the First World War project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which aims to build a greater understanding of life during the First World War.