Brentwood Ex-postman speaks about Office war memorial

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Ex-postman from Brentwood speaks about sorting office war memorial

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DID you know that post office workers from Brentwood who died during both world wars are commemorated on a special plaque at the Royal Mail sorting office?

The names of 11 servicemen are on the memorial, which is in the main sorting hall in the building on the corner of St Thomas Road.

David Sparks, who worked as a postman in Brentwood for more than 40 years, said: "It's a memorial to the First and Second World War. There are nine names on there from the First World War and two were added for the Second.

"There is one chap who was awarded the Military Medal, which is one of the highest awards you can get. One man there was never found in the First World War, his name was E. Barlow.

"They don't know what happened to him and, to put it bluntly, he was probably blown to pieces.

"Unfortunately, there are no Barlows left in Brentwood.

"There's another memorial in Shenfield, at the station. It's up on platform three.

"It's all there is for people in the public services in Brentwood."

During the First World War, Royal Mail – known then as the General Post Office – had its own dedicated regiment, the Post Office Rifles.

The regiment comprised of 12,000 employees from across the UK.

The first duty of the Post Office Rifles was to protect the General Post Office premises against German spies or saboteurs.

To accommodate the influx of recruits in the First World War, a second Post Office Rifles Battalion was formed in September 1914, called the 2nd/8th Battalion, City of London Regiment.

Like many other regiments, the Post Offices Riffles were stationed at the Western Front and were involved in many battles, including the Somme and Passchendaele, where they suffered tremendous losses.

Of the 12,000 General Post Office employees in the Post Office Rifles, 1,800 were killed and 4,500 wounded.

The Post Office Rifles Cemetery is just outside the village of Festubert in France and contains the graves of only 26 identified Post Office Rifles men.

But it has over ten times as many unnamed tombstones dedicated simply to 'A Soldier of the Great War'.

Mr Sparks, 77, continued: "It doesn't say on the memorial which regiment they belonged to.

"There would have been people before me and while I was there that would have been able to tell me that information.

"A lot of things happened in Brentwood in the thirties. The sorting office was built then."