George Payne, 1895-1918: In Memoriam

In September 1990, 42 Year 10 students from Chesham High School travelled to Belgium and northern France to visit the battlefields and cemeteries of the Great War. They carried with them a wreath and an inscription: “In loving memory of George Payne, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, from his sister, May”. They laid the wreath at the Memorial at Tyne Cot cemetery, which records the names of those who fell and whose bodies were never recovered.

Two weeks earlier I had visited George’s sister, May Brandon, in Chesham. She was 85 years of age. She showed me the last letters he had written and his photograph in army uniform. She told me his story.

George volunteered in 1915, aged 20, but because of his poor eyesight he was given a job as a baker in the Army Service Corps. In fact, George was ideally suited to this job as he worked as a baker in Darvell's bakery, a Chesham family busines which is still in the town today. In 1918, the army was desperate for front-line troops. George, despite his poor eyesight, was transferred to a combat regiment: the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Two days before the end of the war, November 9th 1918, George’s parents received a telegram telling them that their son had been killed in action in the previous month. May, just 13 years old at the time, said she clearly remembered that terrible day. Her mother had just taught her how to use a sewing machine. She came into the kitchen of the small terraced house in Chesham, to find her father sobbing, his head resting on his arms on the kitchen table. It was the first and only time she saw her father cry. Her mother, broken hearted, died two years later.

For George’s sister, the Great War was not part of the distant and forgotten past. Seventy-two years is a long time to get used to somebody’s absence but she still spoke lovingly about her elder brother. Mrs Brandon died in March 1991. I was glad that she had the chance to tell George’s story.

Here he is pictured in the ASC regimental team. You can see George's entry in the Commonwealth War Graves website here George Payne - CWGC: