Civil Wars: From Dublin to South Russia…: Pages 20-24

Happy New Year to my readers everywhere. You are much appreciated on this small, erratic blog. Though the book was published in 2022, I am, apparently, continuing to post. Partly this is because I vaguely feel I should be marketing it (hah!) but also there is a sense of loyalty to those readers who have invested their time reading and sharing their own experiences of this part of history. And, too, the whole thing still feels a little unfinished to me too. Maybe it the nature of such a project that there are loose ends because of the lack of records – for instance, what happened to those Bolshevik prisoners mentioned in the pages here? There are no mention of the Mission having taken any. And I still have no idea of what historians would think of the book,or my research. Is it rubbish? Does it make any sort of sense? Have I added anything? No idea. I still feel there is more to come. So onwards we go…

Granddad arrived in Taganrog just before Christmas Eve. Within a week, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, he was helping to pack up what could be taken and destroying what couldn’t, including aeroplanes, a petrol dump and the wireless stations. No need for fireworks then. The remainder of the mission then walked through deep snow with Bolshevik prisoners (this is the first and last mention of them) to the station- which is still there – where they commandeered a train. Given the chaos on the line at this point their luck at finding a train was assisted by General Holman and General Wrangel who were zooming about the place and hearing that the last of the men were stranded sent a train to get them.

The journey from Taganrog to Novorossiysk via Rostov, which is around 500km, took 12 days, nearly as long as it took me to write this post thanks to WordPress acting the maggot, but was far more horrific. I will go into that in the next post.

In other news, my uncle Michael whom I have mentioned here, has had a book of stories from his time as a missionary on the Amazon published by The Salesian order of which he is still a part. I am extremely envious of the smoothness of his publishing journey and the attractiveness of the result. The Salesians know how to design a book…who knew?!More on that another time.