A few months ago, Coleen got in touch with some thoughts on living in Albermarle Mansions and kindly told me about the Islington and Finsbury website which maps all the local soldiers who went to war showing a poppy where they lived.
A brief record of each soldier summarises their life. It struck home when I realised that it was close to 100 years ago that one young soldier, Harold Ffoulkes, only 18 years of age, had lived in and set off from this building never to return.
Countless soldiers lost their lives, and indeed still do, but this one had caught my attention and I didn’t want his anniversary to pass unacknowledged. I couldn’t find a photo of him, nor much other than the following entry:
| Person | Private Harold Ffoulkes (3332) |
| Address | 7 Albemarle Mansions Holloway Road London |
| Details | Served in B Company 19th Battalion the London Regiment, and died in France at the age of 18, on the 26th of July 1915 and is buried in Noeux-Les-mines Communal Cemetery, France, grave reference, I. A. 10. |
| Age | 18 |
| Died | 26 July 1915 |
This Saturday will mark 100 years since Private Harold Ffoulkes died. It’s not much, but I will think of him and his young life and the family he left behind as he set off from this building, his home. May he rest in peace.
Drawing the Street 