Old soldier finds grandfather's bugle from 1916

Old soldier buys battered bugle from market stall... and finds it was used by his grandfather in Battle of the Somme

By CHRIS BROOKE
Last updated at 11:17 AM on 19th November 2010

The grime of nine decades had tarnished its golden gleam. 

But something drew Maurice Green’s eye to the battered old bugle on the bric-a-brac market stall.

When he looked closer, he noticed the first three digits engraved on it matched his grandfather’s Army service number.

Lucky find: A bugle used by Daniel Clay, right, was found on a bric-a-brac stall by his grandson Maurice Green, left

And when he held it in his hands, something told him that it was meant to be his.

Back home, he cleaned away the dirt to find the very bugle his grandfather had played during the battle of the Somme in 1916 – the battle he never came home from.

 

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‘I spotted this battered old bugle on a bric-a-brac stand,’ he recalled. ‘It was as black as soot but I noticed its Army service number had the same first three digits as my granddad’s. 

Wartime treasure: The bugle found by Mr Green

‘I couldn’t see the last two digits because the bugle was filthy. But something in me started shaking straight away.

‘I took it home, began cleaning it and I was stunned when the last two digits corresponded to my granddad’s Army service number.

‘It seems certain this was the bugle my granddad played at the Somme. The buglers weren’t issued with two bugles and soldiers aren’t in the business of losing their equipment so I am convinced this was the one he would have had in the trenches.’

The tragic story of Mr Green’s grandfather, Drummer Daniel Clay, had long been part of family folklore.

Bloodshed: The Somme witnessed one of the most brutal battles of the Great War and cost Britain 432,000 dead or injured

One of the family’s most treasured possessions is a moving letter written by the 26-year-old soldier to his mother on the day before he died. 

The letter told of a ‘terrible bombardment’ going on and predicted it would be ‘hell upon earth before we have finished’.

Drummer Clay asked his mother ‘if it should be that my time has come... just look after my darling little daughter.’ 

Tragically within 24 hours the soldier, a member of the 8th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, was killed in battle. His body was never recovered amongst the 60,000 British casualties of July 1, 1916.

Bugler Clay's last letter

On June 30, 1916, the day before the Battle of the Somme Drummer Clay wrote home to his mother: 

I am writing this letter just behind the firing line and there is a terrible bombardment going on now. It will hell upon earth before we have finished. 

Dear Mother 

if it should be that my time has come, of which I trust not, just look after my darling little daughter. I am asking you this because we never know this may be my last letter. But don't get down hearted mother as I shall not be long before I let you hear from me. 

I am pleased to tell you mother that I am going over with a good heart and quite confident that I shall get through it quite safe. 

I shall have to close now mother , with my very best love from your ever loving and devoted son Dan. 

PS give my very best love to my darling daughter and tell her daddy is fighting for her sake and give her these for me xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

He left a six-year-old daughter, Harriet, whose mother had died in childbirth.

Mr Green, Harriet’s son, said: ‘It would have been nice if we had found the bugle while my mother was still alive, but she was so proud of him, as we all are.’

Harriet died in 1995 at the age of 85 and always had a photograph of her father on display.

Mr Green, 73, inherited his grandfather’s war medals, which had his service number 13202 – the number on the bugle. It was played again this Remembrance Sunday when the Last Post sounded over Rotherham.

Mr Green, who paid £5 for his piece of family history at a market in Rotherham, said he believed the bugle was picked up on the battlefield by one of the few survivors.

‘They were a Rotherham unit and it will have been picked up as a memento,’ he said. 

‘I asked the stallholder where he bought it from and he said it came from a house clearance but he couldn’t remember when or where he got the bugle.

‘The important thing is that it has ended up back in the right hands in the end, in my granddad’s family, where it belongs.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330792/Maurice-Green-buys-bugle-finds-grandfathers-Battle-Somme.html#ixzz15jpdKDMR