A quiet little chap

My father was quite a reserved man and conversation was usually confined to the minimum of detail needed. One day in the late 70's - I can't remember the circumstances - we happened to be visiting the little parish church of Whicham, Cumbria, near where I grew up. Inside was (and, I believe, still is) displayed a copy of the Victoria Cross and accompanying citation awarded to Lance Sergeant Tom Mayson of the 1st/4th Battalion, won by him at Wieltje, near Ypres, on 31st July, 1917.

Being a teenage boy and full of awe about such matters, I was, needless to say, quite taken with this and then he casually remarked, "I've held his V.C." That was it. No further explanation; all subsequent questions discouraged. He died a couple of years later and I never got to ask him any more questions.

Still, I wondered for years about his comment and then, in conversation with some of the older people in the village where I lived, I learned how he had come to know Tom Mayson well enough to be allowed to hold his Victoria Cross.

Tom Fletcher Mayson was 23 when he won his VC. His citation reads;

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty, when, with the leading wave of the attack his platoon was held up by machine-gun fire from a flank. Without waiting for orders, Lance-Sergeant Mayson at once made for the gun, which he put out of action with bombs, wounding four of the team; the remaining three of the team fled, pursued by Lance-Sergeant Mayson, to a dug-out, into which he followed them, and disposed of them with his bayonet. Later, when clearing up a strong point, this Non Commissioned Officer again tackled a machine-gun single-handed, killing six of the team. Finally, during an enemy counterattack he took charge of an isolated post and successfully held it until ordered to withdraw as his ammunition was exhausted. He displayed throughout the most remarkable valour and initiative"

What the citation doesn't say is that the killing was done by a little man only about 5'5" tall who, apparently, by his own admission, "was terrified and didn't know what had got into him." According to those I spoke to who knew him in later life, he certainly never bragged about his deed, and seemed such a "quiet little chap."

The Second World War found him serving in the local Home Guard, and working at Millom Ironworks as part of the railway gang in the shunting yard. This is where my father knew him from, since, between leaving school and being conscripted into the Army in 1946, he worked in what was the equivalent of the Quality Assurance Department, being responsible for tracking the billets of pig iron produced from the blast furnace, and his job would take him regularly out into the shunting yard to work with the railway gang - and Tom Mayson.

Tom died in 1958 and is buried in Whicham Churchyard. My father died in 1980; I wish I'd persisted with my questions.