The Best Guide for the Neston Area

Money very well spent....... Absolutely superb...

It would be nice during the ceremony to commemorate Lt Christopher Bushnell ceremony to mention also other Nesting soldiers that gave their lives in the great war. I lost 2 great uncles who were on the Cheshire regiment. GT uncle William Lewis, who died in Gollipoli in 1915 aged 20 and my GT uncle Thomas who was killed at Ypers in 1918.

pingpong is absolutely correct – those from Neston who died in, or as a consequence of World War 1 deserve greater recognition. To this end I have spent much of the last 3½ years researching, and writing, the stories of these men - although 92 are commemorated in the Parish Church I have found 170 men with a significant Neston or Burton connection. Whilst this is still a ‘work in progress’ I am hoping to get it completed, and produced, within the next 4 – 5 months; at around 1700 pages in total, this is a significant work and one that can’t be bulk-printed. However, a paper copy (it will span 7 volumes) will be made for Neston Library and it should be possible to produce versions of the whole work on DVD. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible in the immediate future to put the whole of this work on an existing website.
Concerning the Lewis family, there were actually three relatives who died – as well as Thomas and William, who were brothers, a cousin (also Thomas) died.
Whilst I have not yet put out a ‘public appeal’ for locals to volunteer information for this work – I will be doing this in the next few weeks – I hope that pingpong, and anyone who has any information on ancestors who died (although I have a considerable amount of information on men who served, but survived, I will leave it to others to write their stories!) - will contact me on the following email address. I will happily email what I have written, on an individual, to anyone who contacts me and can contribute information or assist with the record for that man. As an indication of the type of record I am producing for each of the men who died have a look at two of the accounts, for Christopher Bushell and William [‘Billy’] La Touch Congreve, our two local WW1 VCs, on the Neston Past website ( http://www.nestonpast.com/) – click the First World War link on the left of the home screen.

Ian L. Norris hometownheroesneston@gmail.com

Hi Ian the work you are doing sounds amazing. I have sent you an email with some information about how you can link into to some of the work we are doing across Cheshire west to commemorate the ending of World War One. I have spoken to our archives manager who is very interested in your work too
Hope this ok
Louise (Louise.gittins@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk)

I too lost a member of my family.He was my grandfather Jack [john]Cartmel of Neston.I never got to know or meet him as he died of Mustard Gas that destroyed his lungs so badly that the only way he could sleep was in the open air.He spent most of his life sleeping in what was then the Laundry fields between Neston and the Dee.Thanks to him and men like him we still enjoy a good life........Dave Lowans in CANADA