"but the last message home was all about the deafening roar and how terrible it was"

Marion: My husband, John Maxwell, his mother was Kathleen Gunning and she married to Billy Maxwell who was a chemist in Enniskillen.  Her four brothers all joined up in the First World War, the youngest one was too young, he joined the cadet part of the navy. Jack the eldest went into the navy and the two middle ones Cecil and Douglas joined the Dublin Fusiliers, the Pals Brigade who formed up on the rugby ground in Lansdowne Road. 

They would’ve been a more prosperous family than my background because their father, Sinclair Gunning, was the actuary of The Savings Bank in Enniskillen and they lived at that time in Willoughby Place. Sinclair had married Kathleen Benson, whose father was originally from Letterbreen, he came up through his career in the post office in London and came back as postmaster to Enniskillen.  The Gunning brothers all went to Portora, they all played rugby, there was a big tradition of going into the bank, all four of them went into the bank, the eldest brother Jack ended up as the head, of what is the Merchant Hotel now in Enniskillen, they lived in that house the bank headquarters.

Cecil and Douglas joined the Dublin Fusiliers and went out to Gallipoli. They kept a diary, the local museum has a photocopy of the diary, very, very interesting.  I’ll not tell you all about that at the minute. It was all idyllic going out on the ship, there was a canvas swimming pool on board, and they dived, stopped in Alexander, buying oranges and all this but they had no idea what they were going to.  Then they landed on the beach, met some people they recognised from Enniskillen, who were with The Inniskillings there. Anyway, it was pretty horrific.

Douglas was invalided home first on a hospital ship, it was disease and dysentery that got a lot of them, and Cecil was eventually invalided home as well via Egypt.  Douglas came home to recuperate and there’s this strong feeling of arriving home.  They felt very strongly that they were Irish and coming home to Dublin was a huge thing for them and he made his way back to Enniskillen, but he was having nightmares and all kinds of things, he was traumatised, but he enlisted again with The Inniskillings, and he went out to France. 

The last entries you know, at first, he was sort of trying to reassure the mother that he was managing ok, but the last message home was all about the deafening roar and how terrible it was.  He was killed, he had had a finger shot off first and he went to a dressing station, and he could’ve gone back he had every right to go home but he insisted on staying with his men.  He went out over the top and his body was never found, there was nothing to bury. That was a big trauma in that family. John’s mother, one of the youngest, she was the only girl and their father died just before Douglas was killed so he never knew.  So the mother was left and the other boy still in the war.