Postscript

Posted by Tim Bates (2017) on Armistice Day, 11th November 2017

My father, Ernest Alfred Bates (‘Ernie’), was discharged from the army on 5th March 1918 and thereafter returned to the Home Civil Service in the War Office, being sent to Belgium on the Disposals Board as a Second Lieutenant Accounts Officer.  Afterwards he transferred to the Treasury where he worked in the Rating of Government Property Department until his retirement.  He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1950 for his work in the service.

He married Grace Griffiths in June 1926 and they had three children - Norman (born April 1929), Pamela (born July 1931) and David (born April 1933).  Grace died in May 1933 when she was just 29 years old.

My father married my mother, Irene Hutton, in October 1936.  I was born in 1954 when my mother was 44 and my father was 57.

My father died in October 1966 aged 69, when I was 12 years old.

Certificate of Discharge from the Army (5th March 1918)

Character Certificate (5th March 1918)

Employment Card

Queen's Westminster Rifles Association Membership Card

Renewal of Disability Pension (28th January 1919)

Disability Pension Ceases (9th March 1920)

Back in "civvy street" after the war

Marriage to Grace Edith Griffiths, June 1926
(Grace died in May 1933 aged 29 years)

Marriage to Irene Mary Hutton (my mother), October 1936

In the uniform of the Home Guard during WW2

With his children David, Pamela and Norman (L-R)
and his second wife, Irene

At his office in the Treasury

Record of the award of the Order of the British Empire in 1950

Personal letter of congratulations from Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer

With my mother and me (aged about 8)

On a family holiday in Scotland in 1965