For anyone like Bill Turner, to build upon a deservedly recognised achievement must be a satisfying experience. All those who have read and learned from Turner’s ‘Accrington Pals’ and its supplement, ‘The Accrington Pals Remembered’, will welcome this guide book extension of his lovingly tended field of socio-military history. The author’s books ensure that we know something of the local background of the men of the 11th Service Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment, of their deeds, of the memorials of their collective service, and of where their fallen lie buried or simply commemorated. The reader of this new book will now be taken as a rather special ‘pilgrim tourist’ in the footsteps of the Accrington Pals on their wartime journeys, with periods in the line, in reserve and at rest, noting what still remains recognisable of what those Lancashire soldiers saw in the second decade of a century now ending.
The story is frequently told in the words of Pals having vivid powers of recall. By this means, on location in the United Kingdom, on troop transport, in Egypt and in France, we find ourselves with the Pals from the formation of the battalion and throughout its service until its last shots were fired.
We were with them on the Somme in front of Serre in July 1916, in Oppy Wood in 1917, again in July, and we learn in detail how Lieutenant Horsfall won his Victoria Cross at Ayette in March 1918. We are also introduced to a much more recent story, one of real fascination. Bill calls this ‘the Pals Industry’, and while one recognises the appropriateness of an image of ‘labour’, certainly Turner’s labour, perhaps more appropriate might have been a word conveying the author’s dedicated nurturing of society’s indebtedness to those men of 1914. East Lancashire’s debt is clearly established, but by extension, it is our debt too, wherever we may come from, a debt to a whole generation of men who, for a range of reasons, responded positively to their nation’s call at a time of need.
Bill Turner’s work, and that of others who have directed their attention towards locally raised units, has been invaluable. This local historian understands the wider scene within which his books are set and not least because of this, he has played a notable part in ensuring that ‘his’ Pals are understood as men of their time with the perception, values and attitudes of their time. From such an understanding, the respect in which the men of the 11th Service Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment have always been held, is refurbished here.
Turner has served them well.
Peter Liddle