Demobilisation of soldiers after the Great War was staggered. Sidney was to experience over another year of military service after November 1918. Doris in later life confirmed to me that Sidney, as a young dad, had spoken of being billeted to a German family in Aachen (Aix la Chapelle) during what became known as the post-War Occupation of the Rhineland. He apparently recalled that the German family were ‘good to him’.
Primary source material on the Occupation of the Rhineland seems to be in short supply so it is very difficult to access precise details. However, Sidney’s Tank Battalion diary (at the National Archives) records that they moved into Germany in August 1919, this following the signing of the Peace Treaty (the Treaty of Versailles) in June 1919. Between November 1918 and August 1919 the Battalion Diary records little except ‘improvement of billets’ (between Albert and Arras in north-eastern France) and ‘lectures, education classes and games’. There was piecemeal ongoing demobilisation, but not for Sidney who, anyway, must have faced an uncertain future. On 17th September 1919 his Battalion took part in the British Army of the Rhine sports day. On the 5th November 1919 Sidney’s Battalion was disbanded, the event being marked by a concert and regimental dinner.
Military service documents from the National Archives show that between November 1919 and March 1920 Sidney served in the ‘Tank stores’. I have not been able to discover whether he returned to London in the Spring of 1920, where he had been working as a delivery boy when conscripted, or whether he moved back to his home village of Boughton in south-west Norfolk where his parents lived – he may even have gone elsewhere for a while. Whatever the case on 20th September 1924 he married Annie Rix of Boughton in All Saints church Boughton. 24 years later I was born.
The picture above shows Sidney’s War memorabilia, the object top-right being a standard issue New Testament and next to it the top of his medal box on which was written information vital to my research.