Commemorating George Windram
During the early summer of this year a call went out to the wider Sedberghian community asking for a volunteer. The grandson of George Windram (Sedgwick House 1895 – 98) had contacted the School asking for information about George, a casualty from the First World War. George died while serving with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and until that moment we had not known that George had died in the conflict. During the Old Sedberghian Club Pilgrimage a pledge was made to visit the resting place of every known Sedberghian WW1 casualty. As the Club did not know of George’s death, he was not included in the Pilgrimage. It was time to put that right.
Our School Chaplain, Rev Paul Sweeting, who is also an RAF Reservist Chaplain felt strongly moved to visit George’s grave. Below is an account from Paul, first of the visit he undertook privately with his wife, Maxine, and when he returned a few weeks later on the School battlefields trip with the whole of Year 11.
When I saw the request to visit the grave of George Windram I was immediately interested. Maxine and I were planning a short holiday in Ypres and decided to extend it – and to include a day to head down to the Somme in order to visit the grave and pay respects on behalf of the School. Having not known about him, the OS Club had not visited in 1918 and I felt that it was important to now include George Windram. Maxine was equally keen.
On Speech Day morning I was on Winder Fell first thing and invited James and Caroline Morgan, two senior members of staff, to gather some soil with me. They had invited colleagues to join them on Winder for their final Speech Day before retirement. This soil I took with us to scatter on the grave, following the practice begun during the OS Pilgrimage to scatter soil from Winder on the graves of OS casualties. I had assisted in 2014 with gathering and blessing the soil for the Pilgrimage. A ‘Sedbergh remembers’ cross came with us to Ypres, along with the soil and the service card that was used on the Pilgrimage.
It was an emotional moment to find George’s grave, set in a beautiful Commonwealth War Graves cemetery with typical Somme slopes below us. He lies with seven other soldiers of New Zealand, six of whom died on the same day – that was striking. For us both it was an unforgettable moment, and deeply meaningful, to be there.
I returned about two weeks later with the Year 11 Battlefields Trip. This was the last visit of our day on the Somme and the pupils were unaware of the significance: quite deliberate on our part. By this point they had really begun to appreciate the enormity of the First World War – we had just come from an Act of Remembrance at the Thiepval Memorial. There, George Windram’s name was read out for the first time as an OS casualty on the Somme. Now, by his graveside, I told them the story of how we had come to hear of him, of what we knew had happened back then, and brought today’s Sedgwickians forward. One was invited to place another cross on his grave and after a period of reflection a pupil piped as the others took their leave of George Windram, one of our own.
Sedbergh remembers.
