Church – Who were they?

South Durham Street Chapel group photo. c. 1930.
Group from South Durham Street Chapel, c. 1930.
Back row: unknown, unknown, Gertie Stevens (nee Linfoot; ALL’s sister), ? Whittaker, unknown, Fred Waggott, Sheila Linfoot?, Dorothy Wiseman, Moira Linfoot.
Middle row: unknown, unknown, ? Whittaker, Billy Stevens, unknown, unknown.
Front row: all unknown.

At church in Sunderland, we happen to know one or two of the families, such as the Whittakers and the Waggotts, who were still around in the 1940s, and ministers such as Messrs Chadwick and Blott were still being mentioned occasionally at that time; but some, such as Blaikie (or Blake), though often mentioned, are merely uncertain names, while others such as Mr Eaves are known only as having preached or died, or both.

Little is known, either, about people ALL met at churches in Sheffield and Alnwick. It is noteworthy how hospitable the church families in these places were to Army personnel; the Inwoods in Sheffield and the Dons in Alnwick, for example. But we know nothing more than the diary records about either Miss Inwood in Sheffield, or Miss Mack in Alnwick – though ALL did once mention the latter, whom he had met when expecting soon to go to France (and who had apparently lost one boy-friend to the War already, if the entry of 26 February 1916 means what it appears to.)

Miss Inwood was 18 in 1915, 7 years younger than ALL, and he may perhaps have felt more like an elder brother than a potential boy-friend – he went back to see the Inwoods in Sheffield at the end of November 1918 – though there is a suggestion that she may not have seen it quite that way. However that may be, no more is known about either Miss Inwood or Miss Mack.

DL
August 2013


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