THE bell tolls: Listen out next Wednesday as the Rotherwick ringers toll the big tenor bell in remembrance of the first village casualty of the Great War.
Cecil James Gasson was just 17 when his ship, the HMS Bulwark, blew up on that day in 1914. All but 14 men died and Cecil’s body was never found. He grew up on the Tylney estate where his father was a carpenter.
The next man to be so honoured will be on Thursday, at St Michael’s, Heckfield; Private Albert Woolford, of the Rifle Brigade, died on November 27, 1914, of wounds sustained on the Western Front. The ringers will strike nine times to denote a man, and after a pause, 100 times for the 100 years (normally this would have been the age of the deceased). The bells of Rotherwick, Mattingley and Heckfield will continue to be tolled over the next four years as the anniversaries of the dates on our war memorials come up.
CHARITY Curry: This Sunday, at Hook Tandoori, at a £12 all-you-can-eat Bangladeshi Food Festival. Ring 764844.
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