Old Colwyn WW1 Memorial
This website is an online version of one man’s very hard dedication and work to keep the memories alive of the people who served in WW1 from Old Colwyn who sadly did not come home. Diege Evans has spent many years collecting as much information as possible on those men who served in the war. Afraid that the information would get lost, he approached us and asked if we could make a website with everything that he has collected. It has been an honour to work on this with him and in the process we have learnt a lot about the families of the men who served and of course the men themselves. Here are a few words from Diege.
”It started about 8 years ago, before that I always went to Colwyn Bay on remembrance day for the parade in the town. Then I said to myself why don’t I go to my local memorial so on the next remembrance day that is what I did. After the church service we all walked out of church to the memorial where the Rev Phill read out the 66 names from ww1 and the 23 from ww2. But that was it, just JONES A/B/C. So not liking that and saying to myself they deserve more than that, I approached Phill and asked him if he would mind if I was to give him the Christian names of the men on the memorial for the next years service. This he said he would like very much, so I got to work.
I spent hours in the library looking at 1914 to 1919 micro fish slides digging out information on whoever I found living in old Colwyn and on active service. And going down to kew in London, along with hours at home on my PC searching on the CWWG site and soldiers died. Hours, weeks, and days my wife knew where I was in the kitchen. Nice for her to order her brew. It took a long time to start building the information up but time was on my side well, so I thought. I then got very ill with my cancer and the work went on a go slow I stopped for a long time but picked myself up with help from my wife and friends and started again. So at the moment I am 98% with the men on our memorial and finding little bits of information now and again I have payed my respects to about 12 of the 66 in person and said thank you to each of them. We cannot and We should never forget what they gave for our freedom. “~ Diege Evans
If you would like to see the site please click here http://www.oldcolwynmemorial.co.uk/