home and attended many tribunals to argue their cases in
front of a military judiciary. Altogether Foxearth lost 11
men and one woman whilst fighting in France. Three of the
men died when they drowned in the mud of Flanders, after
torrential rain.

Those wondrous schemes for life ‘after the war’
You steeled yourself - and laughed at shot and shell

Now the plans for developing the business had to be re-
thought and David’s younger son Harold came into the
equation. He too was serving as an airman in France and
had been shot in the leg in 1917. On getting airborne again
a few weeks later, he and a comrade were shot up in a dog-
fight by the infamous Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen
the Bloody Red Baron which resulted in Harold being
severely wounded and invalided back to Foxearth.

You gave your life - to help and show the way
Tonight is fine - a full moon and the sky is filled with stars

the hum of your machine will soon pass by
Do you remember all those wondrous nights ?

The fun we had with navigation lights.
And when returning from the East and West

But all is still - there’s not a sound and I
Remember that somewhere in France you lie

The long, bitter war of attrition that the generals
predicted would be no more than a short, swift textbook
manoeuvre was to end a year later. When peace returned,
it seemed that little had changed. But it soon became
disturbingly clear that life was not normal and the
comforting framework of pre-1914 could not be easily
restored. In the spring of 1918 Harold followed in the
footsteps of his brother and went to study brewing science
at the University of Birmingham and later achieved first-
class honours in the subject.

Asleep. In Goggenheim - it is close by…
Oh ! France - Great Mother - You, who watch their sleep

We thank you - and our gratitude is deep
For the great vigil you so reverently keep.

Bernard had been awarded a bar to his Military Cross a
week before he died. In David Ward’s own press cuttings
book is a letter written by Maymee to Bernard on the day
before he was killed. Full of the everyday hum of life, it
arrived back at Foxearth three days later marked ‘Killed In
Action’.

Although the brewery, like almost every other industry,
faced disruptive economic problems that resulted from the
loss of markets, a loss of manpower and further increases
in duty (after the war duty rose to £3, 10s a barrel) , David
Ward seems to have been an employer who was careful in
his financial activities and one who inspired loyalty, trust
and affection. The war had brought misery to the Ward’s
domestic life and the business was waning with reduced
consumption of beer in many areas of their empire.

His father, dispirited, at first abandoned the brewery in
lethargy and despair and likened the news of Bernard’s
death to the cutting of a ring of bark from a healthy tree.
Escapist  longings,  never  far  distant,  threatened  to

overwhelm him. The crushing psychological and moral
impact of such an appalling loss as his adored son must
have profoundly coloured his isolation and outlook. For all
his acuity of loss David dragged his weary body back into
commerce. Bernard was not the only young man from the
village and surrounding area who had died. Throughout the
war David had sought to keep members of his workforce at

There had been authoritarian governmental controls
over the opening hours for licensed houses; prices had been
fixed and brewers were asked to reduce the original gravity
and consequently strength of their products - the average