Letter set me on road to revelation

Now and again a letter makes you sit up.

But first something that I have hitherto been diffident about writing. However, there is a good reason for deciding, after an adult lifetime really, to finally put pen to paper. I’ll come to that shortly.

Here goes.

Truth to tell, I had a very brave great uncle.

His name was Walter Stone and he was the youngest of the five sons (and brother of the five daughters) of my great grandparents Edward and Emily Stone. (Emily’s maiden name was Miéville, and this too is pertinent to my story.)

My father told me that Walter, or Wally as he was known in the family, was a bit of a tearaway, a character trait that his time at Cambridge did nothing to quell.

Accordingly he was sent, out of sight, out of mind, to Canada to earn an honest living and cool off. This he did until Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and Europe collapsed into the carnage of the 1914-1918 war.

At this point Wally downed Canadian tools and sailed back to Britain to enlist for King and country.

In passing it is worth noting that the five Stone sisters kept my family’s “war album”, from the day war was declared until the 1918 Armistice. In it the doings of the five Stone brothers – four in the Army, one (my grandfather) in the Royal Navy – are faithfully recorded and it is this fascinating record that describes Walter Stone’s career.

Aged 25 and an acting captain in the Royal Fusiliers, on November 30, 1917, Walter’s part of the Western Front at Cambrai faced a massive German attack. This is what it says in the newspaper cutting in the album.

“The attack developing with unexpected speed, Capt. Stone sent three platoons back and remained with the rearguard himself. He stood on the parapet with the telephone under a tremendous bombardment, observing the enemy and continued to send back valuable information until the wire was cut by his orders.

“The rearguard was eventually surrounded and cut to pieces, and Capt. Stone was seen fighting to the last until he was shot through the head. The extraordinary coolness of this heroic officer and the accuracy of his information enabled dispositions to be made just in time to save the line and avert disaster.”

His body was never recovered. In my youngest days, but old enough to remember my great aunts talking of it, the death of their brother Wally (and also his brother Arthur) stayed with them and was made vivid to me, despite the intervening years.

“Ah, but then the solicitors read Uncle Walter’s will!” chuckled my father as he lit his pipe.

“I heard from the cousins that apparently there was mention of a son in Canada – a shock! – and that no-one in the family ever mentioned it again. Completely hushed up. Ever since I have always wondered…”

Now we come to my letter – the one I started with, the one I got just a few years ago. It was from the Curator of the Royal Fusiliers Museum in the Tower of London.

“Dear Mr Stone,

I have reason to think that you may be related to Captain Walter Napleton Stone of the 3rd Battalion the Royal Fusiliers killed in action at Cambrai on the 30th of November 1917…”

I called the telephone number and, entirely intrigued, asked the curator how he had deduced that I might be related to Walter Stone.

He told me that a Google search had brought up the name of Walter’s brother Reginald Guy Stone, the one who had served in the Royal Navy, the one who was my grandfather and had fought an “eventful” war (trying to attack a German battlecruiser with his small gunboat) – all of which I had written about in a newspaper column that was subsequently published online.

In his letter – and he also confirmed this in our telephone conversation – he told me that prior to the Google breakthrough the museum had traced Walter’s family as far as the death of Walter’s son in California in the 1990s…

My God, it was true!

“So, Mr Stone – we are wondering if you might have any idea as to the whereabouts of the medal? Either on loan, or even purchase, the regimental museum is most anxious to have it.”

Ok – this is the point, the point that I am slightly shy about.

You see Walter was awarded a posthumous VC for his actions that day in 1917, exactly one week before his 26th birthday. I gave the curator the details of my cousin who has the medal – and in return asked to tell me what he knew about Walter’s son. His answer was a revelation.

Having left Cambridge rather hurriedly, Walter had emigrated to Canada in 1913 and subsequently had a baby boy, Reginald Miéville, by a girl from Ontario called Mabel Maud Jukes.

Following Walter’s death Mabel had married an American citizen called Eric Oliver Gurney – and in due course the child Reginald was given his stepfather’s surname Gurney, probably to save embarrassment in an age when illegitimacy was much frowned upon.

Reginald (Miéville? – did he keep the name?) Gurney died in California – but this is what I wonder, did he know about his real father? Did he know just how famous he was – the cuttings from The Times of the day in the family war album leave one in no doubt.

Furthermore, did Reginald Gurney have any children – they would be my second cousins, and do they know about their grandfather’s heroism?

Ah, what mysteries time might unlock! And that is why I took the plunge and decided to tell this story. That is the reason. Just as my online writings put me in touch with the Royal Fusiliers regimental museum, so perhaps, almost going full circle, this column in turn might one day catch the attention of someone called Gurney.

Just as a message in a bottle rides the Atlantic wave – so my tale sets sail.

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