BANE OF THE V.C.

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 December 1933, Page 11

BANE OF THE V.C.

COST A HOLDER HIS JOB May the Victoria Cross sometimes become a handicap in civilian life, a definite obstacle to employment, and a perpetual, persistent, drawback to the man who won it “For Valour ? The question, says the “News of the World,” is provoked by the experience of a professional man whose name was on everybody’s lips in the dark days of Gallipoli, but. who for four years has hardly known whore the next, meal was to come from. From his master's desk in the preparatory branch of Manchester Gram, mar School, a young territorial officer went to war in the first week of August, 1914. Six weeks later he was on his’way to Egypt. Within twelve months lie had won the greatest distinction the profession of arms can offer. Tho young man was "The Cigarette V.C.” Captain illien Lie.u tenant) William Thomas Forshaw was the first member of tho teaching profession decorated with the Cross of Valour. Me was at Helles when the Suvla Bay landing was undertaken. His ov n division—tho 42nd -was under orders to counter-attack tho Turks and by the demonstration divert the attention of tho enemy from the critical operations in Suvla Bay. With a handful of men Captain Forshaw rushed into a temporarily aban-

doried corner of a Turkish trench and held on. For forty-one hours they stayed there, harassing the enemy with bombs improvised from jam tins and fired by means of cigarette ends when the stock of matches gave out. Three times the Turks counterattacked and were repulsed. So desperate was the. position in the tiny bit of trench that Captain Forshaw drew his revolver and shot three of the enemy where they stood. Finally a shell blew up the trench and the party. and for a time, at any rate. Captain Forshaw. lost interest in the war. All iliis, it happened, took place under i he eyes of two brigadiers unconnected with tho 42nd Division, and it was on their representations that Captain Forshaw got the V.C. For ■ twelve months he was out of action with a. head injury, and then he was . posted as instructor to a. cadet battalion in Ireland. A shortage of white officers later led to Captain Forshaw’s i transfer to the Indian. Army. In India ; Captain Forshaw’ had taken part in i four campaigns, passed the. Staff ’ School, and served two years on staff ] work in army education, lie reason- ; ed that the experience would be a . useful asset on his return to England. < “On the contrary,” he says, “I found -i my army experience was a. farce, and ’ a. joke, and that, in civilian life it. was : a. thing of no importance and no vahm. So it has been ever since 1 camo 1 home.” ] As he had taken a regular commis-

sion Captain Forshaw discovered that his previous service in the teaching profession lapsed under the Burnham Scale; he was back at the beginning of things. So rather than rust, as he put it, he took a. post for two years in the Air Force Educational Service in Egypt, and went home again in 1925 to discover that he had now definitely lost, all standing in his own profession—that he was ten years behind schedule, and that his overseas experience and his travels counted for nothing. For a. time Captain Forshaw taught in. a council school in Ipswich, and then he took a post in a preparatory school until it (dosed eighteen months later. 11l 1929 he went to London for the V.C.’s dinner at the House of Com. mons, and has stayed in London ever since, trying for four years to find some regular occupation. Captain Forshaw has lived, or tried to live, on commission earned in the sale of a variety of goods, from bottles of wine to stationery and books. “And these canvassing jobs I should never have had,” lie declared, “but for the letters V.C. tacked on to the end of my name. It was always a. condition of an engagement that my cards should bear those letters, in tho belief that they would get me where another salesman could not go. “Humiliating and distasteful, 1 know, but not so contemptible as the proposals put up to me by bogus company promoters who openly .offered

me money if 1 would consent to my name being used to ‘decorate tho board.’ There were half a dozen proposals like that.” Quite recently Captain Forshaw nearly secured a municipal post, but lost it because a pacifist element was in the majority on the council. They suspected militarist tendencies because he held the V.C.