EVERY week the BFP's volunteer historian Mike Dewey takes readers of the print edition on a journey into the past. Due to popular demand, we launch his nostalgia section online.

Last week we began the life-story of Tom Salter, who many readers will remember as one of the stalwarts of the iconic shop in Wycombe, Hull, Loosley & Pearce.

Click here to read the first of our articles on his life.

We had reached the point where Tom had enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps and been posted to Mesopotamia, which is present-day Iraq, but was then part of the Turkish Ottoman empire, to serve during WWI in the 3rd British General Hospital.

Turkey had entered into the war on 29 October 1914, which had immediately prompted Britain to open a new military front in what was then a remote Ottoman province. British and Indian troops were sent to the Persian Gulf in early November to protect Britain’s oil interests at Abahan.

Under General Charles Townshend the force made early gains against weak Turkish resistance, and despite the unforgiving climate, rapidly progressed to within 120 miles south of Baghdad.

The tide turned quickly, however, at the Battle of Ctesiphon (22-26 November 1915). Envisaged as a trouble-free prelude to the final march on Baghdad, it was a bloody affair. Turkish troops withstood heavy casualties to defeat Townshend's attacking forces.

More than half of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who fought at Ctesiphon were killed or wounded. The survivors then endured a dangerous and exhausting retreat down the Tigris to the town of Kut-al-Amara without decent medical or transport facilities.

Apparently the official correspondence after the battle glossed over the horrific conditions which the wounded men endured, arriving for the journey to hospital ships ‘'covered with dysentery' amidst 'dried stalactites of human faeces'.

Worse was to come however. Bolstered by 30,000 reinforcements, Turkish troops besieged Townshend's forces in Kut-al-Amara. The siege lasted 147 days, before the 11,800 British and Indian troops inside the garrison town finally surrendered on 29 April 1916. Captured British and Indian soldiers were then brutally treated on their march to Turkish prisoner-of-war camps in Anatolia.

Of the 11,800 men who left Kut-al-Amara with their captors on 6 May 1916, 4,250 died either on their way to captivity or in the camps that awaited them at the journey's end.

Subsequently, with reinforced troop divisions and a new leader in General F S Maude, British and Indian forces launched a major offensive in mid-December 1916. They advanced rapidly up the Tigris in early 1917. Kut-al-Amara was recaptured on 24 February, and Ctesiphon, where the previous British advance had been checked in November 1915, was taken soon afterwards. On 11 March, British troops finally entered Baghdad. The path was cleared for an advance into northern Mesopotamia, towards the heart of the Ottoman empire in Anatolia. When the war with Turkey ended on 30 October 1918, British forces in Mesopotamia had reached as far north as the oil-rich district of Mosul, which was captured on 3 November.

During the four years of fighting in the region, more than 31,000 officers and men from the British and Indian armies died in combat or from disease.

It is known that Tom Salter was in Mesopotamia from February 1917 to November 1918, so presumably was a member of the force commanded by General Maude. During his time there he sent many postcards to Edith Loosley. The family remember Tom saying that more men died from heat-stroke than in action against the Turks. The temperature was often well over 100 Fahrenheit with high humidity.

Although any large scale operations were halted during the summer months, the average British ‘Tommy’ had no idea how to cope with these conditions.

A book called "In Mesopotamia", which Edith received as a Sunday School prize, described conditions thus. “It was during the afternoon and evening that heatstroke occurred in the main when the humidity in the air began to go up. A great many of the troops had no idea of the danger of the sun. The Tommy does not estimate a condition very quickly, he is obstinate by nature and does not like to give in. He goes on marching in the sun, even though he feels bad, and the collapse is swift and fatal.’’

Tom was discharged from the army in April 1919 and returned safely to High Wycombe. He was re-employed by H,L&P and became engaged to Edith Loosley. The couple were married on 1 January 1921, as soon as the house Edith's father was building for them was ready. This house was Greyholme, 43 Amersham Hill.

The couple had four children – John born in 1923, Robert in 1926, Annie in 1928 and Hilary in 1931. Tom used to cycle to work, from half-way up Amersham Hill to Oxford Road, and came home to lunch!

In his early years at H,L&P, Tom attended evening classes to learn cabinet-making, and began designing and making his own furniture. He patented several ingenious items, including a drop-side cot which converted into a playpen, and a folding bed which could be used as a single or double. As time went by he came to despair of modern furniture - he particularly disliked foam and said he would prefer not to have to sell it.

Tom steadily took on more responsibilities at HL&P, eventually becoming manager after the death of William Cox Loosley in 1933, and was subsequently appointed a Director of the company. He worked mainly in the furniture and funeral departments, and also dealt with the many residential properties the family then owned around the town.

In the undertaking business Tom would hand-engrave the brass coffin plates and attend the funerals in a silk top hat. He told an appalling story about the early days of embalming, when it first became popular and the firm needed to be able to provide this service.

Apparently in their first effort they injected too much embalming fluid into the body, which soon split open and fluid dripped out of the coffin joints. Tom was obliged to get underneath it with a brace and bit and drill a hole in the bottom where it couldn't be seen, and collect the drips in a bucket. He told this favourite story with peals of laughter!

All the time he continued to play a very active part in the Union Baptist movement, including lay preaching, teaching at Sunday Schools, writing Nativity plays, and hosting garden parties in support of missionaries. He was wonderful at DIY and managed a large and productive garden, so that the family felt little privation during WWII. He had great dignity and strict principles but an irrepressible sense of humour.

Tom worked on at H,L&P until he was 70. He then enjoyed a happy retirement, with his children and grandchildren frequent visitors, and died in High Wycombe Hospital on 7 March 1975, aged 84.

I am grateful to Thomas Salter’s eldest daughter Mrs Nancy Grace and to his grand-daughter Mrs Hazel Langford for sharing their memories, and allowing me to use their research in the preparation of this article.