FILKIN Geoffrey

Appears in the Worcester/Worcestershire Roll of Honour Book for army casualties located in Worcester Cathedral.

The following account, copyright and courtesy of Geoffrey’s granddaughter, Judith and Tony Hunt:
Geoffrey Filkin was born in Aston on 30th January 1889, the ninth and youngest child of George Griffin Filkin and Caroline Elizabeth Filkin nee Ragg.  We don’t know where he went to school but in 1911 he was living in Smethwick and working as a despatch clerk in a sherardizing company.  He married Lydia Violet Hyde at Smethwick Old Church on 29th October 1911 and they lived in Smethwick.  They had two children, Donald (Judith’s father) in 1912 and Kathleen in 1913.  On Donald’s third birthday on 8th January 1915 Geoffrey arrived late and announced that he had voluntarily enlisted.  He is reported to have said that he could never kill a man but wanted to do his bit – which is why he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps.

He was sent to France in October 1915 and we know nothing about that period because his military records have not survived but he was at Aldershot in June 1916 when he wrote to say he was going east, probably India.  It wasn’t India, it was Macedonia and Judith and I spent several days at Kew reading the War Diaries of the colonel commanding the 37th General Hospital.  The hospital was shipped to Salonika (Thessaloniki) to find they had been loaned to the French forces supporting the Serbians. They were sent to a place about 50 miles NW of Salonika called Vertekop (now Skydra or Skidra) where they set up the hospital under canvas on the opposite side of the railway line to the 36th General Hospital.  They found themselves mostly looking after injured Serbian soldiers and Bulgarian PoWs in dire conditions (very hot and dry with malaria in the summer and subject to flooding in the winter not to mention lack of provisions, air-raids and a train crash).  “The Times” referred on 29th August 1916 to “the luxurious British hospital at Vertekop” but that was “spin”.

On 12th March 1917 between 7.45 and 8.30am some 16 German aircraft attacked Vertekop station and then apparently followed a train in the direction of the hospitals.  The C/O thought that it might have been an accident that some of their bombs fell in the Hospital area.  Geoffrey was killed with three other privates and two staff nurses (QAIMNSR) and they were buried at 5.30pm.  It seems that a formal complaint was made to the German Government who claimed that no red cross flags were in position whereas the C/O insisted they were.

After the Armistice Geoffrey’s remains were moved to the Mikra British Cemetery at Kalamaria near Thessaloniki.

Lydia’s parents (Alfred Hyde and Margaret McLean Hyde) had moved to Rowney Green before the War which is presumably why she went there with the children soon after Geoffrey’s enlistment.  Later her parents moved to Radford (c1918).  In June 1916 a letter from Geoffrey reached Lydia “c/o Mr Fred Burman, “The Woodlands”, Rowney Green”. Another letter to Donald dated January 1917 was addressed to “Woodlands Cottage, Rowney Green”.  We do not know when they moved to Longfield Cottage and the CWGC website is only reference to this that we know.  Donald went to school in Alvechurch for a while and recalled walking there with holes in his shoes.  Later, he and his sister were split up and raised separately by two of Geoffrey’s married sisters whilst Lydia apparently remained in Alvechurch where she married Thomas C. Woodward in 1934.