During the First World War, Clement was called up in 1916 and sent to join the 3rd Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. However his health was poor so he was transferred to the 4th Lincoln Labour Company in December 1916 and judging by his poems, saw service on the Western Front.
In 1919 Clement was sent to work in a Reception Camp in Beau-Marais, France where he apparently guarded German Prisoners of War. He was discharged in November 1919.
In 1919 Clement was sent to work in a Reception Camp in Beau-Marais, France where he apparently guarded German Prisoners of War. He was discharged in November 1919.
Clement married Ruth Barraclough in 1940 and ran W. Brooks, a gentleman's outfitters in Cavendish Street, Keighley. He was an amateur violinist.
He wrote more than a hundred poems during the First World War but, as poets often do, he threw most of them away in 1929.
Clement Bartrim died in 1988 at the age of 92, by which time he was living in a nursing home.
Ian Dewhirst edited and published some of Clement's remaining poems under the title "The Awkward Squad and Other Verses" (printed privately in 1976).
With many thanks to Ian Dewhirst, historian and former Keighley Reference Librarian, who met and interviewed Clement Bartrim and then edited and published a collection of some of Clement Bartrim's poems;
to Andy Wade, who researched the poet, David Knights of the Keighley News who wrote the 2015 article about Bartrim;
to Yvon Davis of the Facebook Group Mud, Mining, Medals in Balarat Australia who spotted and sent me the link to the Keighley News article
and to Len Gooby, John Hancock, Shirley Hall Bird of Stanley Kaye's Facebook Group Remembering the First World War in 2014 One Hundred Years who all helped me find further information about Clement Bartrim - https://www.facebook.com/groups/rememberingworldwarone/686547901468031/?notif_t=group_comment
By a strange coincidence, my Great Uncle Albert Jackson (born in Haworth in 1893), also lived in Keighley. In 1911 the family lived in Arncliffe Road. I only found out about Albert when I saw the 1901 Census on line and I am still trying to find out about him - Mother never mentioned having an Uncle Albert though she often spoke about her father's sister Annie.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/MiningMudMedals?fref=ts
http://menofworth.wikispaces.com/Bartrim%2C+Clement
http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/features/featuresmemorylane/11758269.Keighley_s_unknown_poet_of_the_First_World_War/?ref=twtrec
http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/11794316.Keighley_veteran_could_feature_in_exhibition_about_forgotten_First_World_War_poets/
www.findmypast.co.uk
http://www.freebmd.org.uk
"Telegraph and Argus" article March 15th, 1990
"Keighley News" article December 27th 1976 - kindly provided by Mr Ian Dewhirst
