GLENHOUSE ROAD WW1 STORY

A personal connection has been forged between a young soldier killed in World War One and a resident in his same street, nearly 100 years on.

It was cycling past St John’s Church when Mark Foran’s daughter Grace asked an innocent question about the War Memorial.

“It sparked a thought in my mind about those names”, he said. “The fact that each must have their own personal story and they all must have had local connections.”

Further research through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission revealed that one of those names, Private Alan McCrea of the Seaforth Highlanders, had been a near neighbour of his in Glenhouse Road.

“When it’s that close, it does bring it home to you”, he said.

Mark, an IT programme manager, has had an abiding interest in World War One for some time and, for the past 10 years has been going to the Somme with a group of friends and a guide to walk various parts of the front line.

On a recent trip, he paid his respect at the soldier’s headstone, which is Brown’s Copse Cemetery, near the main A1 road between Calais to Paris at Arras.

Along with his wife, he then joined the team of volunteers planting the ceramic poppies in the moat of the Tower of London and registered Alan’s name to be read out at the Roll of Honour ceremony, which remembers members of the Commonwealth forces who were killed in the First World War, and was conducted each night in September and October. 

More investigations at the Greenwich Heritage Centre in Woolwich revealed further information about his neighbour; that he had attended the Gordon School, later John Roan, and been on one of first scouts in the area, also in the local cadet corps.

Private McCrae enlisted with the Seaforth Highlanders in 1915 at the age of 17 and initially went to France in 1915. His service had been interrupted by a long period recovering at home, from March 1916 to February 1917 suffering from trench foot, an infection brought on by cold, wet and insanitary conditions before meeting his death on 11th April 1917, at the age of 19.

Alan had been the son of a cork merchant, third youngest of seven, but it’s not known whether any relations continue to live locally.

Mark Foran