War Horses and mirror writing

Time in Haworth churchyard today with those developing a simple guide for the Bronte Society.  The Bronte Parsonage Museum is in the back of this first picture.

We found the new Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) sign in freshly in place.  The intention to install a sign alerting visitors to the presence of war graves was one of the motivations for developing the guide.  Both war graves are marked by family headstones and we feared people setting off on a fruitless search for distinctive CWGC headstones.

We found the tree which obscured the inscription on Frederick Carr’s grave had helpfully been cut down, we hope by Bradford Council which maintains the churchyard.  Carr joined the Army Veterinary Corps in 1897 and served first on the North West Frontier of India and then in South Africa during the Boer War (being seriously wounded).  The rate of the loss of horses became a scandal and he became involved in seeking to tackle this problem travelling widely with what was called the Remount Commission.  He saw service in northern Nigeria and in Egypt before going to France at the outbreak of the First World War (where he was again wounded).  Back in Egypt, he was seeking to tackle a cattle plague epidemic when bitten by an infected mule.  He was brought home to England and died in hospital in 1917.  He had been mentioned in despatches, awarded the Order of the Nile and an insignia in the Ottoman Order of the Osmanich.

We also pulled back the matted earth on one grave to find that roots had followed the lines of the inscription beneath and now represented a mirror image of it.