Pages of handwritten notes made by a lady who saw her father go off to war have been donated to the Chorley Remembers project.
Elizabeth Alice Smith (nee Bowling) was just eight when her father, 38 year old John Bowling, left Chorley in 1916.
He came back a changed man – wounded and full of rheumatism.
Written in around 1981 (she died in 1988), the notes cover everything from life in Chorley during rationing, sending a parcel to her father at Christmas, to his return in 1919 when she wouldn’t kiss him because she didn’t recognise him.
Most telling is the comment “…he just wanted to forget which I didn’t think he ever did.”
The Chorley Remembers project intends to offer the story to local Schools, as well as trying to track down any relatives of Mrs Smith and Private Bowling.
Download the full story here.
