Name
Leslie Parkes
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
31/10/1916
20
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
43190
Northamptonshire Regiment
6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ST. SEVER CEMETERY, ROUEN
O. I. O. 10.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Letchworth Town Memorial, Church of St Nicholas Memorial, Norton
Pre War
Son of Frederick and Florence Parkes, of 67, Common View, Letchworth, Herts. Native of Southborough, Bromley, Kent. Apprentice Garden City Press. Norton School; medal pair (or possibly his brother?)
Wartime Service
RoH says: gun shot wound scalp and meningitis; Letter to Canon Bailey from Felixstowe saying he was sleeping near A Armishaw on boards with 2 blankets apiece - died on his birthday.
This is one of 75 typed copies of the letters received by the Revd John Baily at St Nicholas Church, Norton, Letchworth, in reply to his letters. The originals are in the Archives at County Hall Hertford, but can be seen in the HAW Archive "here"
Leslie Parkes
3rd Bedfordshire Double 6 (& Section)
Landguard,
Felixstowe
Suffolk
Tuesday 13th
Dear Mr Bailey
Hoping all’s well with the club and Church and sorry I have not written before, but have wrote letters until I have got sick of it.
Am with all Norton boys, there are half a dozen of us in our room. I am sleeping with A Armishaw on the boards with two blankets apiece.
At first we had rather a rough time but we are getting on pretty well now. We have plenty of services here in the tents. Did you read a piece in the Citizen this week on Kitchener’s Kitchen? This was written by A Armishaw and sent to the Skittles Inn of course it is rather exaggerated and things have altered altogether since then.
Am surprised at the fellows here as I expected a few rough chaps but cannot find hardly one, I saw two trainloads of Hitchin drunkards leave for Bedford and I see some of them here but they are as quite as mice, the pubs are only open one hour a night so that we very rarely see a drunkard.
We see plenty of sights here, on the sea, at the fort, the aeroplanes are out all times of the day, we have been on twenty-five mile route marches twice a week, the other day we were given the name of a road and had to find it having to try to get there first, it was about ten miles out. Our company got there first and were taken about a mile away here we were told to get home the best way we could, making strait for home we went through ploughed fields, cabbage fields and woods and caught one or two rabbits.
I must close my letter now as it is bedtime 8.30
Yours truly
Leslie Parkes
Additional Information
The letter above is one of 75 typed copies of the letters received by the Revd John Baily at St Nicholas Church, Norton, "here".
Acknowledgments
Dan Hill, Ellen Barnes, Jonty Wild
