Sian Davies talking about her father Tom Evans who served in the First World War - Part 1, 2018

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Tom Evans lived on a farm near Llandysul and when he was 16 his mother died. Before then when he was 12 he left school and to stay at home to work on the farm. He was able to plough behind the horse at the age of 12. After that he went back to school in New Quay and stayed in digs with two ladies during the week, and studied Maths, Greek, Latin and basic education. Then he went to Lampeter University where he decided he was going in for the Church and there's a picture of him and various other students in the Centenary Booklet in 2016. Then war had broken out and a lot of the students who were going in for the Church decided that they wanted to be part of the War, and became members of the RAMC (The Royal Army Medical Core) and there's a huge amount of history that's been produced in a booklet in Welsh by R. R. Williams who was in the same group in University. The book was called 'Breuddwyd Cymro Mewn Dillad Benthyg' - 'Dreams and Memories of a Welshman in borrowed clothes'. It's the history of the Welsh Batallion of the First World War in Selonica. He was out there in 1916 and I have his diary (1.5" x. 1.5") with entries such as 'bullets were coming down as hail stones during the day' and other times he would be on the ward on his own at night not only nursing their own but also the enemy. R. R. Williams and Cynan, who later became the Archdruid of Wales, and C Hughes who became a Methodist Minister in Cardigan were with him. They had a tough time and they were very young and they were given huge responsibility nursing these people They had to go down to the front and carry bodies back on stretchers. R. R. Williams says in his book that he has a son called Doiran, and Sian Davies's brother is called Doiran as well. The story goes that my father and partner were going down to the front line with a stretcher and coming back this man was very heavy, and they had a post where they were meant to stop and have a rest but this man was so heavy that they decided to put him down and they did and rested, and as they picked up him again the next place was bombed. Had they walked on he would have been killed. R. R. Williams had a very similar experience., and they both called their sons Doiran after Lake Doiran. They went back on a pilgrimage at the end of the 1960s but weren't able to go near Lake Doiran as it was in Yugoslavia which was then behind the Iron Curtain, but they did visit other places.