We will remember them, October 1917 
On October 1st, as the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) entered its third month, it claimed the life of another young man from Alderley Edge. Gunner Percy Pilkington, of the 58th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, was aged 29 when he died.
The 58th Brigade was attached to the 11th (Northern Division), which was engaged in the action at Polygon Wood between 26th September and 3rd October. We do not know much about the circumstances of his death, but it is likely that he died in this action.
Percy Pilkington was the younger son of Hubert and Alice Pilkington of One Oak, Brook Lane. Hubert was a surveyor from Bury, where Percy was born,
but at the 1901 census the family had moved to Wilmslow Road, Alderley Edge. In 1911 Percy was described as a home trade salesman. He is buried in Dozingheim Military Cemetery.
This month also saw the death of another Alderley Edge man who was a belated casualty of the Battle of the Somme. Lance Corporal Henry Fletcher was one of the thousands who responded to Kitchener’s call for volunteers at the beginning of the war, enlisting in September 1914. He served in the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards and was posted to France in January 1915.
The report of his funeral in the Advertiser tells us that he was seriously wounded in the head in September 1916 and was discharged from the army in May 1917.
Born in 1891 to Samuel, a coachman, and Emma, he left the village school in 1904 and is listed as an under-gardener in the 1911 census. However, he then joined the Liverpool Police.
After his discharge he returned there, but after only four months he died suddenly on 8th October. His death was attributed to the wounds he had received. His body was brought back to St John’s Church Lindow, where he was buried on 13th October.
If you know of Alderley Edge men who served in the war and returned home afterwards, we should be glad to hear of them