Harold Wallin

Harold Wallin
Mark Wallin’s Grandad

My Grandad, Harold Edgar Wallin, was born and grew up in nearby Seagrave and worked in the local boot & shoe industry. Like many of his peers, almost nothing of what he experienced was ever spoken about and so what follows is pieced together from his military records and the documented history of those regiments in which he served.

In December 1915, at the age of 21 years and 6 months, he enlisted at Loughborough and was recruited to the 2nd Life Guards, which later formed the Household Battalion. In late 1916, he married my Grandma, Evelyn Sophia Gamble, of Sileby, shortly before embarking from Southampton to Le Havre.
At that time, the Household Battalion was involved in the Battle of Arras and the 3rd Battle of Ypres (more often referred to as Passchendaele). At the beginning of 1918, he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, who, at this time, were in trenches near Arras and later they took part in the Battles of Bapaume, the Somme and Cambrai. Following the armistice, they marched through Belgium to Cologne for occupational duties, before being demobbed in 1919. My Grandad died in 1974.

I have a picture of my grandad and grandma on their wedding day framed between two embroidered regimental postcards that grandad sent to grandma during the war. On the back of the frame is a piece of material from my grandma’s wedding dress.