Bertie Walter Parkins was born in late 1893 in Hemel Hempstead and baptised at the start of the following year in St Paul’s Church on Wednesday, 21st January 1894. He was the second child of Walter Parkins and Alice Elkins and his siblings were; Elizabeth Alice, Kathleen Sarah, Hilda Mary, Harry Percy, Maurice Joseph, Leonard George and Doris Lucy. In 1901 the family were living at the Old Bell Gate Pub in Hemel Hempstead, on the intersection of St Mary’s Road and Redbourn Road where Bertie’s grandmother Elizabeth was the landlady. The pub still stands in this location today although this part of the original Redbourn Road is now Allandale.

It is not known how Bertie was employed when he left school, but sometime after 1911, he met Alice Mabel Croft, a sewing machinist, who lived at Kemp Cottage, Grovehill where her father was a coachman at nearby Grovehill House. Bertie and Alice married at Berkhamsted in early 1914, and set up home at 51 Chapel Street, Hemel Hempstead close to the pub where Bertie had grown up. Their first son Eric was born at the end of the same year and a second boy, Ron, arrived in early 1916.

Bertie attested in Watford in July 1916 joining the Bedfordshire Regiment and was posted to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion at Felixstowe for basic training. He was sent to France just before Christmas 1916 and posted to the 8th (Service) Battalion. He joined his new Battalion on the 6th January 1917 as part of a draft of 174 troops which the regiment’s war diaries described as “a very good lot of men”. For the next three months Bertie saw action in the trenches interspersed with periods of trench making and routine training until early April and the initial attacks on Hill 70 between Vermelles and Grenay.

Beginning on the morning of the 15th April and lasting for five days, the 8th Battalion attacked and successfully gained ground until held up on the third day. The Germans then lay down a heavy bombardment which continued until the 8th Bn. was relieved on the 19th April having held the ground gained.

Casualties were heavy with 224 men killed or wounded and Bertie recorded the nightmare of the action in a letter to Alice shortly afterwards: “Dear Wife we have been in ‘Hell upon Earth’ and have not had a chance to write. Thank God I came out all right, bar feeling a bit dazed. It was like a nightmare for about five to six days. I did think of you on dear Eric’s birthday. That day dear, shells were falling like rain. Oh dear it was awful, oh I do long to be home with you. I wish it were all over.”

By late June Bertie was with his comrades in the trenches again and some time between the 19th and 26th he was wounded during the action. He was moved to 33 Casualty Clearing Station where he sadly died of his wounds on Tuesday, 26th June 1917. A report of his death appeared in the Hemel Gazette in early August and included details of a letter sent to Alice describing how her husband met his tragic end.

Bertie is Remembered with Honour in Bethune Town Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France where he is interred in Grave VI. F. 25. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his wife Alice reads, “GOD TAKES OUR LOVED ONES FROM OUR HOME BUT NEVER FROM OUR HEARTS”.

He was 23 years old when he died.

Bertie was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.