I hadn't planned on publishing a post this week but the following info which crossed my path tempted me so to do. It has both relevance to the canal and the time of year and I've suggested to the Landlord of the Cowroast Inn that a copy be posted next to the Poppy Box in the pub. I've also put one by the lock so that on this Thursday, 3rd November, the anniversary of Albert Pickthorn's death, passers-by can ponder thereon.

Remembering Lance Corporal Albert Ernest PICKTHORN, ‘B’ Company, 28th Battalion, Australian Infantry, Died 3rd November 1916

On 2nd March 1915 Albert Pickthorn enlisted in the Australian Army in Western Australia. Albert was born 27 years earlier at Cow Roast Lock, where his father was the lockkeeper. In 1911, looking for new challenges and sense of adventure, Albert decided to leave Cow Roast and start a new life abroad. That April he left Liverpool bound for Western Australia..

After completed his army training in Australia, Albert was sent first to Egypt and then to Gallipoli, as part of the ANZAC troops to fight the Turks. Here he experienced the full horrors of the warfare on the peninsula. After the Gallipoli evacuation at the end of 1915, Albert’s battalion was transferred to the Western Front, fighting for the first time in July 1916 during the initial stages of the Battle of the Somme.

After a short period resting near Ypres, Albert’s battalion returned to the Somme in the early autumn taking part in a major attack on the German lines south of Bapaume at the beginning of November. Initially posted as ‘missing in action’ following the attack, it was not until June 1917 that Albert was finally declared ‘killed in action’.

Albert’s name now appears on the Australian Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.