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Articles
About the
Project
"ABOUT
MYSELF" by Simon John Chambers
By nature I am mechanically-minded and love
nothing more than tinkering with pieces of wood and metal. I
love creating from base stock a finished product I can touch and
feel and look at. My most recent project has been the total
restoration of a 1951 Lea-Francis wooden-bodied estate car. It’s
now fully on the road after more than thirty years of neglect in
a forgotten corner of a scrapyard.
But the Dover War Memorial Project brings
together all my skills. My many years working in BBC television
stand me in good stead as photographer and researcher for the
Project. Organisational thoroughness and an eye for the smallest
detail are essential when there are thousands of pieces of
information to identify, sort, catalogue, and file. There is a
gentler side too. Meeting the relatives of many of the
casualties has helped me understand the enormity of the loss,
even several generations later. We are remembering the past and
giving it a future, and this can do nothing but enrich and
deepen the lives of all those this Project has touched. It will
go on touching them for many years to come.
On a personal note, I have now caught the
genealogy bug myself, and am already back to 1800 and deepest
Cornwall with my own family tree. In July 2006 I discovered one
of my own great uncles, Frederick Baker, died of wounds in the
Great War, and I was able to visit his grave at the hospital
cemetery Etaples, France. Perhaps I was the first family member
ever to do so.
Frederick Baker's entry in the Book of Remembrance at
Etaples
Inscription on Frederick Baker's grave stone
He was in the London Regiment, and was 24 when he died
on 6th June 1915. His parents were Thomas and Emily Baker
(nee Chambers), from
Walworth |
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Left, a scroll issued for those buried at Etaples
Above, Etaples after the Great War, picture on the
scroll |
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