We Will Remember Them: Thomas Alexander Mills d. 3 May 1915

The first person that this series will be remembering is the second cousin of my step-great grandmother, the attached chart shows how we are related. Although at the time of Private T.A. Mills death she was a widow who was yet to marry my recently widowed great grandfather.

Thomas Mills was the son of a military man, his father Alexander had fought during the Boer War with the 1st Inniskillings being awarded the King's Medal with two clasp, Queen's Medal with five clasps and Distinguished Service Medal. Unlike many of the young men who will be featured in this series he was a member of His Majesty's Forces before the declaration of war having signed up two weeks earlier.

The Helles Memorial, Turkey where he is remembered

He joined the Royal Marine Light Infantry (Plymouth Division) and it was with them that he formed part of the 29th Division that engaged in the initial landings in the Dardanelles on 25th April 1915. The campaign is better known today by the name of the peninsula where the Allied Forces got pinned down for months without advancing; Gallipoli.

Just over a week after the initial landings he was declared missing, his father sought further information, but as too many soldiers from the naval division of the army were listed as missing at the time there was a just a standard response.

On Friday 4th August 1916 in First Derry Presbyterian Church his name was among those read out in an act of remembrance for the young men of the City who had already given their lives during the first 2 years of this War. The location of this service means that it was very possible that many of my family on both my father's and mother's sides could have been present as both their father's families worshiped in that church around this time.

The tragedy for the family didn't end with the end of the war abroad. On 23 June 1920 while walking through the streets on the city side of Londonderry his mother Margaret Mills (née Mowbray) was shot in the chest and died as a result of the wounds there had been gunfire in the area around Bishop Street all day and the inquest had asked if the bullet could have come from the predominantly unionist Waterside area across the River Foyle, but found that it probably had come from the republicans on the Cityside. She was an unfortunate victim of the civil war that still saw many members of my family living surrounded by the republicans on the west bank around the Fountain and Abercorn Road. The Mills at this time were living on Orchard Row just off Foyle Road.

Pvt. Thomas Alexander Mills, Royal Marine Light Infantry, Plymouth Bttn. Royal Naval Division
Born Londonderry City, Ireland 1 Mar 1897
Died Gallipoli, Ottoman Empire (Turkey) 3 May 1915

We will remember him


The Royal Marine Light Infantry during the War

The Royal Marines had been founded in 1664 and men had been billeted in Plymouth, the Division in which Thomas was attached, since the formation. In 1855 the marine infantry forces had been renamed the Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI) and from that time they were set up to lead on landings on foreign and hostile shores to act as the initial wave as skirmishers.

We will remember them: Introduction to an occasional series

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them

At eleven am on this day 100 years ago Austria declared war on Serbia. Due to the interconnectiveness of treaties across Europe within a week we had most of the major powers declaring they would be taking part in the Great War, the First World War.

I knew that a number of my great uncles had served in the Second World War, but all of them had survived to tell the tale. Though very few of them talked about it much. But with an interest in the family genealogy I was always wondering if any of the family had fought and died in that first world war. The earliest bits of the family tree seemed to indicate that due to a quirk of ages that none of the close to blood line relatives were involved.

But then I started to look a little further afield, up the tree for people who had married in the the family and sideways from the generations who were around at the time, looking for cousins or people from within that the family would have known I found there are names of distant relatives whose names are written upon those monuments that were erected following that conflict to mark the five and half million who had died on the Allies side. Many within my family's history had gone to serve, some had even returned from overseas as the family had emigrated to the USA or Canada and came to serve.

This series will act as a act of remembrance to those close to my family at the time who died in the service of their nation. Little did Laurence Binyon know when he wrote the words that follow (the full version) in the early months of the conflict that the way that we will remember them 100 years on in not necessarily by leafing through old, dusty, newspaper archives but through a medium that they wouldn't even have dreamed off. Radio wasn't even a mass media until after the War. Television some further years off and as for using a screen to access information from around the world in a matter of seconds, well that would have been unthinkable.

On the days that those I have discovered fell I shall writing a little bit about them and the battle in which they gave the ultimate sacrifice and the regiment or service they fought with. I shall remember them.

Ode to Remembrance

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon September 1914

David Cameron wants to award the wrong sort of married couple

One thing I've learnt from looking through my family history is that even when there was the so-called married for life example that David Cameron so insists on not all families fit into the model he is advocating for a tax break. Not every family is quite so clear cut as he makes out.

Indeed I don't have to go all that far back to find a family that doesn't fit into the remit of one breadwinner and one stay at home parent. My paternal grandmother was widowed with children of 14 and 9, she never remarried but went out to become the breadwinner and went without much that others took for granted. Both my paternal great grandfathers were widowed one with seven surviving children under 16, the other with two, both remarried and produced even more children.

But the fact that the prime minster wants to "send a signal" that marriage is better than any other type of relationship ignores those that have no choice:

• Those who are widowed
• Those whose partners are abusive and flee with the children
• Those who are single parent families because one of the partners doesn't want that "better type" of relationship (or any relationship) when it brings them children
•  families where even this tax break isn't enough to encourage one partner not to work as they need to make ends meet
• families where neither parent is able to find work

It may only apply to one third of all married couples, but as I pointed out it is not necessarily the married couples with families that need such support, especially not when the caveat is that one of the parents is a stay at home parent. My own mother went back to work part time when I was 8 and my brother 6, and full time 3 years later as the family couldn't continue to maintain the Edwardian ideal of the mother staying at home.

Times have moved on and it is time that out tax code recognised that, not take a step back into the past.

See also check out the Don't Judge My Family website

Dave Only Has One Shaped Peg for Our Diverse Families

The Lib Dems are going to cut taxes for all working and middle class families not just the few. This comes as the Conservatives announce their marriage tax break.

The Tories are giving only £150 a year for couples who are married, the Lib Dems of course are promising £700 a year tax break to each individual who works and earns over £10,000 by raising the personal income tax allowance. Nick Clegg said:

"Modern families come in all shapes and sizes. One-size fits all policies like tax breaks for married couples are just not right for our times.

"Liberal Democrats will give all mothers and fathers the support and flexibility they need to spend time with their children.

"We will cut taxes for all working families on low and middle incomes, not just a select few.

"Following the birth of a child, we will allow parents to share leave between them.

"We will help fathers to share parenting, giving them the right to time off for antenatal appointments. And we will change the way tax credits are paid so you can rely on them and you don’t face the nightmare of having to pay back thousands of pounds when the government messes up your payments."

So as well as the tax breaks the Lib Dems are offering in our policies for families:

• flexible parental leave between the mother and father as they see fit
• free and universal childcare provision for children aged 18 months – five years for 20 hours per week, when resources allow
• fix the payments of tax credits for six months at a time so payments are stable and predictable for families
• set up an independent commission to agree a fair long-term solution to the problem of providing quality care to those who need it in their old age
• provide affordable homes for the 1.8m now on the housing waiting list by bringing the quarter of a million empty homes back into use by offering grant or loans to those willing to move in and renovate them for their own use
  

So while Dave wants to shoehorn us all into the same homogeneous family type the Liberal Democrats are dealing with the reality of the flexibility of the UK situation, giving real solutions that are fair to all, at whatever stage of live.

Why We Need Fairness is Two Easy Lessons

Two findings that make interesting reading today.

First up the pay gap between rich and poor is wider than it 40 years ago. Despite Labour saying they constantly doing something about poverty and helping people aspire, their tax regime of regressive tax increases seems to have had the opposite effect.

The other one I heard on the TV before leaving the house on the BBC was that family conflict not whether the parents were together or apart had more impact on a child's well being. Therefore the Conservative incentivisation, through a tax-break, to stay married may have repercussions on the child if conflict ensues.

Indeed their policy only would affect 14% of the poorest families where only one parent works full time, fail to help 230,000 children living in in poverty in one parent families who juggle work to care for them. Nor will it help 29,000 children living in in poverty where both parents work. In total four out of five adults of working age would fail to benefit from this tax scheme, as well as the above 46% of adults living in poverty are single.

Of course the Lib Dems have a message that is clear regarding both those issues. We want a see a fairer tax system. We will lift the tax allowance threshold to £10,000 lifting 4million out of tax altogether and giving £700 to those lowest paid. We'll balance it with taxes on those that can afford it and on how we pollute.

Ciao Momma I'm Moving Out

What were you doing at 18?

Me, I was starting the final year of my A'levels having a September birthday meant I was only just starting the first term when I turned 18. At nineteen I did move out to go to University but at 26 I found myself back home after finding a new job hard to get in London. Of course I was out the door again at 31 and have been over in Scotland ever since.

So therefore the Italian minister who wants all of Italy's "bamboccioni" momma's boys and girls to leave home at eighteen surely hasn't looked at all the consequences. What are the reasons that 38% of Italy's 18-34 year olds still live at home? Before we mock Britain we are at 34%.

The major concern is financial. Obviously it is cheaper to have all the household bills paid for by your mum or dad. Or course when I spent that time at home I as building a little nest egg, but was looking for places to move out to, never expected I would end up in Scotland where after a year of spending that nest egg on travelling to Scotland or London it was sadly diminished.

But can an eighteen year old afford to move out of home on their own? Not all of them can, so how is the Minister going to insure that instead of 18 years old cosying up to their mothers they are not cosying up to the next homeless person in their cardboard box.

Of course there does come a time when it is ridiculous what some mothers will do for their grown up sons or daughters at home, and expect nothing in return. When I moved back in with my parents I paid a nominal rent, I cooked, did my own ironing, cleaned my own room and helped around the place. I also topped up the car with petrol after use. All of my entertainment came out of my own pocket.

The minister is taking exception to some of those who stay a home not because they need too, but because their momma makes it too nice for them to actually want to move out. Having that first experience of not letting the turkey thaw out long enough, finding yourself in the middle of nowhere after missing the last connection or that washing machine breaking down with your important load in it (all Uni experiences of mine) is part of growing up. They can only be experienced when you move out, find your own place (sharing with strange people even) but they help you learn to stand on your own feet, muddle through and make decisions.

By all means make it easier for young people to be able to afford to move out, but it isn't something your can arbitrarily set a age determining factor on, we're all different.

What is Dave Throwing Out with Baby's Bath Water?

Rachel Sylvester in The Times today draws an interesting analogy out of the child rearing reading material of the political leaders. Considering all three have young families and have said something about families in the last week, there is some logic in her thinking.

But after pointing out that Gordon Brown can't decide which school of thought to follow "tough love" or "tender loving care" it leads to the interesting contrast between the other two main party leaders. Of course we all know what Nick Clegg's view are after the weekend interview in The Sunday Times, indeed all the 'broadsheet' papers have been running with the theme since.

Of course what Nick has objected to is the rigidity of the ideas of Gina Ford's approach. As Rachel Sylvester puts it "the age-old clash between liberalism and conservatism has been reinterpreted for the Mumsnet age". Indeed looking at some of Dave's policies you can see the Gina Ford "Ikea manual" approach.

• You will get married for the sake of the children
• We'll even give you a tax break
• At the age of 65 you will give us £8,000 to insure you get 'free' personal care
• We'll add to word 'Public' into the Department of Health so you remember we care, oh about you (changing the logos and letterheads will cut the deficit)
• At 65 we'll raise the personal allowance for (the 40% wealthiest) pensioners
• When you start saving we'll abolish the basic tax rate on savings, giving up to £5 p.a. who those earning less than £30,000
• When you die we'll help out with your inheritance tax, increasing the threshold to £1m, giving an extra £200,000 to the children of people like George and me.
  

Yeah Dave certainly sets out a lot of milestones to look forward to, if you are wealthy enough to benefit. As for family you'll benefit as long as you are married (he recently added civil partnered) , heaven forbid you get a tax hike upon being widowed, divorced, fleeing a violent husband or wife, of your partner undergoes gender reassignment (forcing a divorce even if you remain together). Of course if your partner is killed in the line of duty fighting our wars, we'll keep you're kids alright, but only they will benefit from no tuition fees.

There are all of these promises of tax breaks, while at the same time David is promising to cut the deficit quicker than anyone else. So what else gives. You may not know, if you are a naughty little person you may be put away on the naughty step (you single parent you), or locked away in the cupboard.

Of course following the regimented top to bottom approach of family, of tax breaks etc means that something other than baby is going to end up being thrown out with the bath water. Surely the Tories cannot keep up all their commitments and race to cut the deficit all at the same time.