OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 1, 2016
One family’s lost boy is
remembered 100 years later
H
enry Bell almost got out. Not
out of the army tunnel where
he died, age 19, on July 1, 1916
under the ields of Mametz, France.
Out of the coal pits.
Was he thirsty at the end? Of all
things to wonder, for some reason
that’s what comes to mind.
Chances are he was blown apart, suffocated or crushed before lingering
physical discomfort became a torture. But I picture him down there in the dark
– dirt in his throat, just wanting a cold, pure drink of delicious water before set-
ting off across the great divide into death.
He may still be there.
It is said a million men were killed or maimed in the Battle of the
Somme between July 1 and Nov. 18 in that middling year of a war few
now bother to remember. The British Army recorded 57,470 casualties
on the irst day alone, the worst event in its fabled history. But it wasn’t
the army that suffered those losses, it was tens of thousands of families,
including mine.
reat-uncle Jack didn’t have anyone else. His wife, Harriet, died giving
birth to Henry, who I fear his father nicknamed Harry in her memory —
what schoolboy wants to be called Harry Bell? Jack and Harriet’s little girl,
Florence, died years before, at age 2. A family photo from about 1904 shows
Jack and Henry together, a digniied and solid father and son, fully inhabit-
ing their lives.
Jack lived for decades after Henry died.
He never remarried. He never buried his son.
Henry shouldn’t have been in that tunnel. He wasn’t intended for the fam-
ily trade of burrowing holes deep beneath the earth — a tradition stretching
back hundreds of years for the Geordie boys and men
of Northeast England. At age 15, Henry was appren-
ticed to an organ maker, marking the start of his
attempted escape from the pits, as coal mines are called
in that country. Miners are a iercely proud lot, wear-
ing their grime and bearing coal-covered lungs as hard-
won markers of rock-engraved courage. Tunnels are
held up by strength of conviction as much as by tim-
bers. But for all their pride, few coal miners dream of
sons following in their footsteps.
Not a pitman, but a music man was to be his role
in life.
Matt
The Royal Engineers didn’t show up in County
Winters
Durham recruiting organ makers, but tunnel men to
dig under the front lines and implant gigantic bombs
to breach German defenses. Henry signed up to be
Henry
one of these “sappers,” who were called moles or
shouldn’t sewer rats by their fellow soldiers. Six months later,
he died, one of about 3,000 British miners who per-
have
ished under the Western Front rather on it, according
to the UK’s Daily Mail.
been
His name is engraved on France’s Thiepval
Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. And in
in that
the nave of Westminster Abbey is the grave of the
tunnel.
Unknown Warrior, one anonymous soldier brought
home from France to be honored by king and coun-
try on Nov. 11, 1920. Like millions of others, I once paused there and cried a
little at the thought it might be my own family’s lost boy.
G
Winters/Bell Family Archives
John Bell and his son, Henry, posed for a formal photograph in the comparatively innocent years just
before World War I. A member of the 97th Field Engineers, part of the 21st Division, Henry lost his life
in the attack on German lines at Mametz, France, 100 years ago today.
oet Owen Sheers wrote “Mametz Wood” about the aftermath of the
terrible battle in which Henry died. In part, it reads:
For years afterwards the farmers found them —
the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades
as they tended the land back into itself.
A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade,
the relic of a inger, the blown
and broken bird’s egg of a skull, ...
their socketed heads tilted back at an angle
and their jaws, those that have them, dropped open.
As if the notes they had sung
have only now, with this unearthing,
slipped from their absent tongues.
P
John Henry Bell en-
listed in the Royal En-
gineers in November
1915 and was killed
half a year later. In a
sad commentary on
the futility of war, his
enlistment document
was damaged during
Nazi air attacks on
London during World
War II.
I picture Henry still buried — deeper, in the heart of the earth, from which
only the slow grinding wheels of geological time will once again deliver him
to the light in some distant and, we hope, more benevolent age. Perhaps he
will be turned into coal, or diamond.
— M.S.W.
Matt Winters is editor and publisher of the Chinook Observer and Coast
River Business Journal. Henry Bell was his grandfather’s irst cousin.
British National Archives
Open forum
Preserve library
he murderous hate crime committed in
Orlando put a stop to my letter about the future
of the Astoria Library. It seemed irrelevant, even
frivolous, in light of the pain and loss inlicted on
the LGBTQ community — indeed, on the nation
itself.
But on further relection, it seems that discuss-
ing the future of a library is especially relevant
now. Libraries promote learning and information
sharing, and are central to the health of our democ-
racy. Furthermore, libraries are inclusive, demon-
strating that we can move forward from diversity
to inclusiveness for all members of our society.
I completely agree with Paxton Hoag (“Library
question” The Daily Astorian, June 10). The city
of Astoria should choose the least expensive
option for the Astor Library building by expand-
ing into the basement, thereby doubling the size
of the present library. Money not spent on exte-
rior expansion can be used for state of the art mon-
itoring systems, possibly even for extra stafing, to
address concerns about a two-level facility.
What is missing in all the discussion about the
library’s future is the signiicance of the present
building. The architectural style is called “brutal-
ist,” a term derived from the French beton brut,
T
or “raw concrete.” Brutalist buildings were pop-
ular in the 1960s, when our library was built. The
designer was local architect Ebba Wicks Brown,
who was the daughter of renowned Astoria archi-
tect John Wicks, and was also reportedly the irst
woman architect registered in the state of Oregon.
There is an increasing appreciation for brutal-
ist architecture, especially among younger people,
who see the style as a refection of the 1960s, an
iconic time in this country’s history. Preserving the
library’s exterior should be among the highest con-
siderations in future planning, thereby preventing
another downtown building from being irrevers-
ibly “muddled” up.
I am told by a young architect friend that the
present consultant for the library’s planning is
experienced in building new libraries, but has little
experience in preservation work. My friend feels
that the planning models are stacked in favor of
building a new facility, which then leaves the pres-
ent library as another abandoned building, while
we the taxpayers foot the bill.
I worry that decisions will be made that “save”
the Astor Library, while at the same time destroy-
ing the integrity of its design. Instead, the city
should upgrade, modernize, make accessible and
reconigure the interior of the present library build-
ing. Preserve the exterior. Any thing less will be
brutal, indeed.
FRED WHITE
Astoria
In the dark
he recent sit-in by the Democrats was special,
and further demonstrates the posture of the
Democrats versus the Republicans. We the people,
by a margin of 80-plus percent plus, want reason-
able gun control.
There are two Democratic bills: one to eliminate
the loophole in the Brady Bill, and require back-
ground checks for both private and gun show sales;
the second to forbid sale of guns to individuals on
the FBI terrorist watch list and no-ly list, plus deny-
ing sales to spousal abusers and felons. The sit-in’s
hope was to generate a vote on those two bills.
Legislators (in theory) are elected to represent
the will of the people, and especially the will of
the majority. Obviously the Republicans choose to
ignore their fundamental purpose, and vote the will
of the 10 percent and the National Rile Association.
The second purpose of the sit-in was to under-
score the wide chasm currently separating the par-
ties and directing blame for the least productive
T
Congress ever — and lay blame on the Republi-
can majority, which have, in the last seven years,
successfully shut down democracy.
After watching C-SPAN and listening to poi-
gnant speeches depicting the horrors of mass
slaughters utilizing assault weapons, and the chant
by the Democrats participating in the sit-in chant-
ing “no vote, no break,” I then switched over to
FOX news.
Their reporting of the event was essentially a
lie. The bottom ticker said, “Demos block speaker
Ryan’s vote.” Not true, they voted on an unrelated
bill. Hannity claimed that speaker Ryan might shut
off the lights, and how horrible the Demos were
for violating the video rules. But not a word about
what was really going on.
The Republican National Committee is well
aware that 40 percent of the electorate vote almost
exclusively on name recognition alone; they hav-
en’t a clue as to what their representative actually
does, and FOX continues to keep it that way. They
will keep it that way by brainwashing their little
minds with Benghazi, emails, birther nonsense,
the Second Amendment, and whatever lies suit the
RNC’s purpose.
MURRAY E. STANLEY JR.
Astoria
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
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