Defending the Ypres Salient: Sidney Alfred Demant 12 June 2015
War
memorials come in all shapes and sizes.
Not many people would associate this drain cover
with the Great War. But whenever I see it as I walk down my garden path I think
of Alfred and the son that he lost just a few years before he built our 1920s
house on Exmouth Road in Budleigh Salterton.
Alfred Demant had moved from Highgate in London to
live in the Budleigh area at some time after 1911. He and his wife Amelia Maude
Louise had taken up residence in Ivy Cottage – now Yew Tree Cottage – next to
the Baptist Chapel in Little Knowle.
Their sons Sidney Alfred and William Harold were
born in London in 1891 and 1893 respectively.
Their daughter Winifred Constance was born in 1897. At an early stage in
the war Sidney joined the 8th Battalion of The Rifle Brigade. Formed at
Winchester on 21 August 1914, the Battalion was made up mostly of volunteers,
part of Lord Kitchener’s New Army. It came under the command of 41st Brigade in
14th (Light) Division, moving to Aldershot and going on to Grayshott on the
Hampshire/ Surrey border in November before returning to Aldershot in March
1915. Sidney Demant was with the 8th Battalion when it landed in France at
Boulogne on 19 May before proceeding to the Belgian town of Ypres.
The Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22
April to 25 May 1915 for control of the strategically important town. The Ypres
Salient – the area around the town
projecting into enemy territory – saw some of the major battles of World War
One.
The remains of trenches at Sanctuary Wood
© Mo
Sandford FRPS 2014
Two kilometres east of the town is an area known
as Sanctuary Wood, so named by British
troops in November 1914 when it was used as shelter. It later became fiercely
fought over by troops from both sides, and is popular with visitors today
because of the way in which the trenches have been preserved.
On 8 May 1915 the Germans had begun a major attack
into the Ypres Salient known as the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, the objective
being to smash through the British front line.
Bailleul cemetery
Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Rifleman Demant was killed in action on 12 June,
aged 24. He was buried in the communal cemetery in the French town of Bailleul,
near the Belgian border. A fortnight
after his death, the 8th Battalion would experience the first use of
flamethrowers by the Germans at Hooge, Belgium.
The Demant
family remained in the area. Both Sidney’s brother William Harold and his
sister Winifred Constance married local people. William, who also enlisted in
the Rifle Brigade, married Gladys Hitt and lived in Chapel Street in Budleigh
Salterton.
Winifred married John James Ratcliff; the Steamer
Steps were previously known as Ratcliff End. Alfred and Amelia Demant remained
in Little Knowle until their deaths in 1923 and 1943 respectively. They are
buried in St Peter’s Burial Ground, on Moor Lane in Budleigh Salterton.
St Peter’s Church memorial
Sidney himself is remembered on the town’s war
memorial and on the brass memorial in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh
Salterton. But it’s the drain cover on
my garden path by which I will remember him.
For more of my observations about Budleigh drain
covers go to https://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2015/03/yet-more-manhole-cover-madness-with-sad.html
Comments
Post a Comment