Photograph of group of soldiers in France, World War I

This photograph was taken in France and printed as a postcard. Private John Titcombe, of Lydiard Tregoze is seen seated 3rd on the right.

John (b.1876) was one of twelve children born at the family home in Hook. As a young man he was known by his friends as Bobber after a coat he wore, presumably because the tails had been cut short or 'bobbed'. John never married and after the war he returned to live with his mother, Miriam, and siblings in the their thatched cottage at Hook.

Apart from his years soldiering in World War I, John's occupation was farm labouring. In the early years he worked in market gardens at Greenhill but In 1930, during the Great Depression, he became unemployed for several years. John was the last of the Titcombe family to live in the old thatched cottage at the top of Hook Street, which was pulled down towards the end of his life.

John's nephew, Malcolm Titcombe, remembers him as a a 'lovely, happy-go- lucky man, a cheerful chap who was always singing and who enjoyed regular visits to the Bolingbroke Arms'.