Michael Stedman

Salford Pals – Remembering those who fought

Michael Stedman has research one of the most interesting books on the Pals battalions, that of the Salford Pal, who were part of the Lancashire Fusiliers. Today when you mention Salford people automatically think of it as a borough of Manchester, but Salford has been a city a lot long than its neighbour. Salford has always been a tough City of working men and women that have inspired writers across the generations.

The Manchester Ship Canal ran from the Mersey to Salford Docks where it would supply Manchester and the whole of East Lancashire with textiles, engineering materials, coal and many others products required by industry. This was part of the recruiting ground for the Salford Pals Battalions, from the docks to every street, and town hall within the borough.

With pictures of the old Salford one is given an idea of what Salford was like in 1914, there were no romantic visions of a city, just a people proud of their city and their country. The book guides you through the training and how the battalions were built up; it was a training that meant that all men became brothers as the book states.

The book also examines the service of the Battalion’s efforts at the Somme with pictures, maps, extracts of diaries and also poems, which them men were excellent at writing. There are some quite stark pictures as well as references in the book that help to make this book an excellent example of military history writing.

After the war the ‘Old Comrades Association’ used to march down Chapel Street, the main road in Salford to attend the Thiepval Day Service at the Sacred Trinity Church. Here there is to this day a memorial to those who fell that day, and the service continued for many years. But as the housing around the church was cleared and those old comrades died the service is no longer conducted. By strange coincidence Sacred Trinity Church was also the church that the nurse Edith Cavell used when she tended to the poor of Manchester.… (mer)