As the centenary of the Armistice which ended the fighting in the Great War approaches on November 11, we will be featuring on the Nostalgia pages some of the men from around the district who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the last four weeks of that terrible conflict.

Peter (Bertie) Tripp
Peter was born in 1883 in Beaconsfield, the son of James Tripp and his wife Hannah nee White. They had married in 1870 and had a total of 9 children. James was a chairmaker. Hannah died in 1883 as the result of childbirth. In 1891 James and his youngest children, including Peter, were living at The Old Hare public house in Aylesbury End, Beaconsfield Old Town, where widow Rebecca Evans was the publican.

Peter became a labourer, then enlisted in the Army Special Reserve at High Wycombe in October 1906. At that time he was described as having a fair complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes, was 5’ 8” tall and had tattoo marks on both arms.

In June 1908 he was posted to the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. In 1910 Peter married Clara Chilton, a widow with three young sons, Daniel, Arthur and Joseph. The couple went on to have their own son Frederick who was born later in 1910. In 1911 they were living at Sunnyside, Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, and Peter was working as a “Horse Driver for a Contractor”.

He was still serving as an Army Reservist when WWI broke out and was sent to join the British Expeditionary Force in France/Flanders on August 31 1914. Peter was there for only 56 days before being transferred back to England. He had been wounded in the head, with shrapnel embedded in his skull.

It took Peter well over a year to recover from this injury, but he was left suffering from a form of epilepsy. Despite this in February 1916 he was sent back to France, not for front-line service but to join the Labour Corps. He spent a further 2 years and 6 months supporting the war effort behind the front-line before returning to England in August 1918. By then his family had moved to Sedgmoor Road in Flackwell Heath.

Soon after returning home Peter contracted influenza, then pneumonia and was sent to Cliveden Hospital near Maidenhead. He died there on October 13 1918. He was buried in the cemetery in Shepherds Lane, Beaconsfield, where there is a headstone in his memory.

Within 5 days of his death influenza had claimed another two members of his family, his wife Clara on October 16 in Marlow Cottage Hospital, and stepson Joseph on October 18. In 1919 his son Frederick’s guardian, Mrs  Laura Tripp, received Peter’s belongings from the Army which included a “watch, chain, metal cigarette case, pipe, pouch, knife, pair of scissors, cap badge, pair of spectacles, pair of glasses and a waist belt.”

In 1922 the Clasp for the 1914 Star awarded to Peter was received by Laura for safe keeping for Frederick. Laura was the wife of Henry Tripp, an elder brother of Peter, and living in Ealing, London.

Joseph Henry Stopps 
Joe was born on July 4 1889 in Lane End, the third child of Benjamin Stopps and his wife Louisa nee Coleman, who had married in the Autumn of 1883. The family bible indicates that the couple had twelve children nine of whom lived to adulthood.

The bible contains a resolution by Benjamin to give up drink and to “try and live to God and for God”. The family moved to Chester Cottages in Wooburn Green, where Benjamin was a carter for coal merchant Mr Baker, whose yard was next door. He ran a regular prayer meeting for the working men of the village and the couple’s five sons joined the local Church Lads Brigade.

Joe Stopps became a jobbing gardener, working mainly in the Beaconsfield area. On October 29 1910 he married Margaret Jane Weston at St Paul’s Church in Wooburn, their son Henry was born early in 1912 and a daughter Rose in the summer of 1914.

After the start of the Great War all five Stopps boys enlisted in the forces. The Bucks Free Press reported in November 1915 “ Hats off to Mr and Mrs Stopps of The Green who now have 5 sons and a son-in-law doing their bit”. Mrs Stopps added that her husband was “worriting and fidgeting as to why they can’t have him”!

Joe enlisted in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in September 1915, but did not leave for France until April 1918. During this time he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade and successively promoted, eventually to Sergeant. At that time his wife was expecting their third child and before he left Joe had said “if it’s a girl, please call her Violet”.

In October 1915 the Rifle Brigade were heavily involved in the “Final Advance” and were advancing towards the river Selle, with the Germans retreating before them. Sergeant Joe Stopps was killed on October 11,1918, “leading his platoon bravely into action against a village then in German hands which we subsequently captured owing to the heroic endeavours of Sgt Stopps and others of our heroic men”, as Captain Dummond later wrote to Maggie Stopps.

Joe was buried, probably the following day, in the British Cemetery at St Aubert, the village which was captured by him and his colleagues. This cemetery was begun on October 12, just after the capture of the village.
Violet Winifred Stopps, “daughter of the late Sgt Stopps”, was baptised at Wooburn on November 18 1918, a week after the war ended. His wife Maggie eventually remarried and became Mrs Shannon.

One of my regular correspondents Florence Stopps nee Robinson, who now lives in South Australia, is related by marriage to this Stopps family, and has written the following poem in memory of Joe and all those who fell in the Great War.

'REMEMBER ME'
They left their homes for foreign lands,
Young ones in their prime.
All answered calls from those in charge
To go and “do their time.”
They travelled from the hills and vales,
Their country to defend,
Leaving all their families,
On others to depend.
Some defended homeland shores,
While others travelled far.
But some would pay the final price,
Or have a lifelong scar.
We do not know what most endured,
Their stories were not told.
Some names are carved on monuments
Of those who would not grow old.
Their names will live forever
In the hearts they left behind.
Let’s treasure everything they saved:
Freedom for all mankind.