John Richard's Story.
Born in 1886 John Richard was the son of William and Grace Jones, in 1911 John age 26 had been married to Florence (nee Cumston) for five years, they had married at St Thomas’ Church, Stockport. He was then working as a collier and living at 6 Forrest Street, Beswick, Manchester, by this time Florence had four children, sadly three had died, leaving only Doris who appears on the 1911 census age 2.
His father, William, had also died by this time. Florence was the sister of James Cumston who also married at the church. When John enlisted on the 3 April 1915, the couple were living at 13 Richard Street, Stockport. For some reason, John decided to travel to Chester to enlist into the army, rather than joining up at Stockport.
It’s possible that he wanted to try and ensure he was assigned to the Cheshire Regiment by enlisting at its Headquarters. However, it was to no avail and he found himself with the Middlesex, and two days later on 5 April he joined the battalion at Hornsey. The 18th Battalion was formed in January 1915, on the 12 November 1915 John embarked for France.
Note. Demob on his medal index card, this is an error.
The unit was a Pioneer Battalion, comprised of trained fighting men, but whose role was mainly in the construction of defences. The Battle of the Somme had started on 1 July 1916 and the British troops had moved slowly forward over the coming weeks. John and his comrades would have usually been part of the final wave of any attack and, once a position had been secured, they would quickly prepare it for defence and incorporate it into the British trench system, making it the new front line. On 23 October, the Battalion marched to the east of the village of Guillemont and dug a new communication trench, connecting the front line with the support trenches to the rear. The next day, work started on constructing new dug-outs. This continued on the 25th and the Battalion’s War Diary, records “Great difficulty was experienced in getting up timber, pack mules being the only practicable means. Wagons with timber left bivouac at 4.45pm did not reach Ginchy until midnight and then the timber had to be carried 2000 yards much of the way through mud knee-deep.” The Diary notes that three men were wounded during the day. On the 26th, “A” and “B” Companies continued work on the dug-outs, Mud continued to be a great problem and several loads of timber simply had to be abandoned. “C” and “D” Companies started work digging a new trench. One man was wounded. John was one of the four men injured over the two days. He was evacuated to one of the two field hospitals (34th or 2/2 London Casualty Clearing Stations) then based at Meaulte, about 13 kilometres to the rear. 
There, military surgeons would have done all they could for John, but without success. The following year, Florence married Myers Watson in a civil ceremony registered at Stockport and they went to live at 32 Hill Street, Portwood.
John's widow and children received a war pension, of 26/3 from 27 April 1917. Florence received support until the eldest child, Hilda 16th birthday in March 1930. Note that Doris appears here stated as born in 1905, while the 1911 census shows that she was aged 2 at that time, this is an error on the pension card as children qualified until their 16th birthday, in this case Doris born in 1908 would have been 16 in 1924.
Part of John's service file shows Doris was born 23 Otcober 1908