Edward the Adventurer!

Great Uncle Ted was famous in our family. He came from a Yorkshire working class family, but everyone said he had left home and travelled the world, he'd even been to South America! During WW1 he served as a soldier and afterwards had met an exotic lady and and lived in a posh flat in London. Mum used to tell me as a child that he and Lilian (his wife) were a colourful bohemian couple who were deeply in love and had glamourous friends who called at all times of day.

He was easy to find in the 1911 census and was 22yrs old, living with his parents and working as a Chauffeur. Then a search on Ancestry came up with an interesting find. On 7th November 1912, The Royal Holland Lloyd Steamship Line ship Zeelandiar sailed from Dover to Buenos Aires. Edward Ruddy, a mechanic, aged 23yrs old was on board, together with thirty-four other adults and twelve children. It’s impossible to know exactly how he came to have been on board, but several companies in Argentina had close links with Britain and advertised for staff in local newspapers. It was not uncommon for these companies to assist with the cost of the passage in return for guaranteed work.

There are no records available to tell us who he worked for or what he did during his time in Argentina. Some people were lucky and found good, well-paying jobs, though newspaper reports tell us that some individuals found the opposite with either no job at all, or poor wages and conditions.

Over the next couple of years life in Argentina began to change, particularly in the more rural areas with people struggling due to poor pay and conditions. As discontent spread, riots started across the country. Perhaps that is why Ted decided to come home, because there on Ancestry was another record of interest showing his journey home. He arrived in Liverpool on 14th April 1914 on The Royal Mail Steam Packet Desna which had left Buenos Aires three weeks previously. He would have had no idea that world events were about to completely change his life and probably expected to slip straight back into his previous routine as before.

World War 1 started in the UK on 28th July 1914 and Ted’s military records tell us that he enlisted on 7th August 1914. He certainly wasn’t one to hang around!

He was employed as a Motor Driver and there was confirmation that he had managed to get his old job back on his return from Argentina, as his Employer, Mr. John Lane, Motor Proprietor had written him a reference for his enlistment. In it he wrote that he had known Ted for five years and this was the second time he had employed him.

In the days before photo ID, there was a description of Ted. He was less than six foot tall, weighed just over 8 stones and had black hair and hazel eyes. Well, that fitted, several members of the family had brown eyes, dark complexions and dark hair, and his brother, my Grandad had been well under six foot tall himself.

Reading on, I found details of where Ted had served in the war. His first couple of postings were to France and he was present at the first battle of Ypres, but had been injured and sent home, though no details of his injuries are known. He had been posted back to France and again injured and sent home once more before being sent to Salonika. I had a vague idea that is part of Greece but had no idea what happened there in WW1. When I think of Greece, I think of sun kissed beaches, drinks of Metaxa and coke, a gentle sea breeze cooling the warm balmy air. I don’t suppose Ted saw much of that in WW1.

Ted had arrived in Salonika in late spring of 1916 and the weather was most probably lovely and warm then. After serving in the French trenches, he and his mates must have thought they’d come to heaven. Ted wrote a letter to the Harrogate Herald in 1917 describing his experiences in Salonika where he says he was serving with the Serbian Army in the Balkans. He describes the roads as being awful and the mountains terrible, he doesn’t seem to know what to think of the Greek people but mentions that the Serbians are ‘nice chaps’! Ted also said that in the summer the country was a ‘white man’s grave’, due to the dysentery and malaria but in the winter, it was freezing cold with snow and wind, and they were camping in tents.

There is little clue in the letter as to how difficult the fighting was, though I expect censorship forbade him from writing any details. He mentions the cold meat and the rain-soaked bed and being reminded to grin and bear by his Sergeant as he is on active service! He also requested someone send him a razor as he said three of them were sharing one. This was essential as Soldiers even on active service were required to shave every day.

I could see from the record that Ted had been injured again in 1918. I was incredibly lucky to find a hospital record relating to this and found he had been hospitalized and admitted to Ward E6, No. 28 General Hospital, Salonika on the 21st Feb 1918 and not discharged until 14th March 1918. I was highly amused to see that the medical condition was varicose veins! The Service records indicate that he was soon back in action though as from the 29th March 1918 he served with the 33rd Motorboat Section Army Service Corps as an Engineer and Driver. This was fascinating as I was aware Ted had been driving cars for years and employed as a driver / mechanic, I had never imagined he would be driving boats.

Crew of armed British Motorboat on Lake Laganza 1916. Ministry of Information WW1 Official Collection. Varges, Ariel (Photographer) Q32051

In Salonika boat patrols were used on Lake Langaza and Lake Beshik, (now known as Lake Koroneia & Lake Volvi), to maintain the so called ‘Birdcage Line’ which was the allied defense line that ran for 70 miles on the Gulf of Rendina in southern Greece. These boats were part of the Royal Army Service Corps but there seems to be little detailed information freely available of how they operated and their specific role in Salonika.

After four months, Ted was injured. On 16th July 1918 he was admitted to No. 29 General Hospital, Ward C6 with a head injury. This record was obtained from Forces War Records. A photograph in the Imperial War Museum of the No. 29 General Hospital shows a cluster of bell tents and marquees and states that it was situated at Karaissi, just north of Salonika in 1918. I imagine it was a hot, dusty place in July. Ted was then transferred to another (unnamed) hospital on the 3rd August 1918 and then shipped home to the UK on 23rd October.

This head injury must have been the injury that caused him to be discharged from the army. As WW1 officially ended on 11th November 1918, he served for the entire duration of the war and received his medical discharge from the army on 9th February 1919.

There is a gap in the records after this until he appears in the 1921 census living with his parents and studying languages in Huddersfield. Perhaps his injury had been severe, and he had been receiving treatment in the intervening time and perhaps he had not been able to get another job. Maybe Ted’s previous trip to Argentina made him interested in learning another language, or perhaps his injury prevented him working for a while.

Over the next ten years the Electoral Records list him living with his parents in Harrogate until 1931 when he married Lilian Fish, the daughter of a Police Sergeant from Selby. Ted was employed as Driver and Lilian as a ‘Theatre Dresser' and might explain the artistic, slightly unconventional lifestyle they had in later years. By 1934 they had moved to London and were living in Alexandra Road and then by the time of the 1939 Register, Lilian and Ted were living in Belsize Road, London, the posh flat my Mum remembered.

Ted was 72yrs old and still in London when he died in 1961. Lilian, who was younger than Ted, lived for another twenty years, she died aged 80yrs in 1981.

When I started my research, I knew the end of the story was a happy one as Lilian and Ted were a happy couple when my Mum met them in 1946. The records had given me facts about their lives and these details added structure to the colourful stories I knew so well. Although there were gaps and unexplained mysteries, Great Uncle Ted and Great Aunt Lilian were now real people to me who I felt I knew. Ted started life as an ordinary Yorkshire lad, but the facts proved he had been an adventurer who must have been courageous to travel so far before the war and then to serve and survive the first world war. Ted and Lilian’s love story is a fitting end to the tale.