See also
| Husband: | John Hesketh Pearson (1886-1966) | |
| Wife: | Idina Gainsford Runnacles (1891-1971) | |
| Name: | John Hesketh Pearson | |
| Sex: | Male | |
| Father: | - | |
| Mother: | - | |
| Birth | 20 Apr 1886 | Droitwich, Worcestershire |
| Death | 26 Oct 1966 (age 80) | Cruz Chica, La Cumbre, Argentina |
| Name: | Idina Gainsford Runnacles | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Father: | Harcourt Runnacles (1860-1894) | |
| Mother: | Kate Jane Walford (1868-1952) | |
| Birth | 1891 | Halstead, Essex |
| Birth fact | 1891 (age 0) | 1891 Dec Qtr, Halstead, 4a/618 |
| Census | 1901 (age 9-10) | Living with mother |
| Death | 8 May 1971 (age 79-80) | |
In 1922, the Reydon hotel was built in Cruz Chica, a town in the district of La Cumbre in Argentina. It was raised and run by Rayner John Runnacles and his wife Jane. A niece of theirs, Idina Runnacles, married John Hesketh Pearson in 1926. The young couple took over management of the hotel for a few years, probably after they returned with their daughter from a visit to Britain in 1929. Now based in Cruz Chica, Jack ,as he was known, served as Honorary Consul of Great Britain, as well as president of the British Commonwealth and representative of the Royal British Legion, which brought together veterans.
The local Argentinian newspaper for La Cumbre notes that John Pearson, known as the president of the British population of the town and Honorary Consul, held a speech at the festivities for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Source: https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/lifestory/3453787
The lesser known story of The Wipers Times.
Captain Fred Roberts, a mining engineer in South Africa, an explorer and prospector joined the 12th battalion of The Sherwood Foresters at the outbreak of war in 1914 having returned by boat to England. Incidentally Roberts met his wife Kathleen onboard. He was, in my view, to become something of a modern day Robin Hood. No pun intended. It was Captain Roberts and fellow soldier, friend and ex-engineer, Lieutenant Jack Pearson who found amongst the ruins of the Belgium town of Ypres a discarded printing press whilst searching for materials to prop up the trenches. As they were about to break it up a Sergeant who had previously worked as a printer in Fleet Street stopped them short, informing Roberts and Pearson the press was still intact and in working order. This was to spark the idea of providing troops with a newspaper designed specifically to relieve the terror they faced through a source of subversive black humour, knockabout music hall jokes and poetry.
So, where did the name come from and what did they write?
Well, thanks to the humour and lack of pronunciation capabilities by the troops, the word Ypres came out as Wipes. So, in keeping with the publications ethos, The Wipers Times was born to print. Pearson, whose brother was the then celebrated actor Edward Hesketh Pearson, became The Wipers’ sub-editor. Produced in the thick of it despite, as Roberts commented “the attention of Messrs Hun & Co”, The Wipers Times proved to be an extended metaphor for the resilience and determination and good ol’ British spirit displayed by allied troops amongst the most atrocious castration of the human race ever known. To combat this perpetual misery faced not just by British troops but by all who served, lived and worked in Europe during the war the paper adopted satirical take offs of newspaper columns, literary parodies, spoof adverts, puns and limericks. Not afraid of pointing a jesty finger at what Roberts called ‘the shadow of the censor’, which is of course the Military High Command, Roberts grew a reputation for prefacing the paper with his defiantly flippant editorials. One such example: “Oh to be in Belgium, now that winter is here!”
Producing twenty three issues of this most remarkable publication quite literally under fire and facing the mask of death Roberts remarked in what I perceive to be humble modesty ‘we wrote whatever came into our heads.’ The evidence suggests otherwise. Roberts remarked when asked in later years about his life during the war “Most of us have been cured of any little illusions we may have had about the pomp and glory of war…”
Source: http://www.women-scorned.co.uk/other/default.aspx?id=342&WW1%20The%20Lesser%20Known%20Elements (accessed 04.10.2017)