DARWEN weaver Bill Kay didn't wait long to join up after the Great War broke out.

Even though he was nearly 38 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and he served for over three years.

It was colourful to put it mildly, but he made it out the other end with the French decoration the Medaille d'honneur, second in rank only to the Croix de guerre, for courage and devotion in the face of great danger.

Bill Kay, who worked at New Mill, just down the road from his home in Hillside Avenue where he lived with his wife Sarah and daughter Ellen, was only a little chap, 5ft 2in and that, together with his age, would have taken him into the RAMC.

He certainly saw plenty of action. The transport ship he was on was sunk in the Aegean Sea, an open car he was riding in was blown to pieces as he dived to safety, he fought his way through Palestine and the second Battle of the Somme and took machine gun bullets through the right knee.

Bill was nearly 70 and still living up Hillside Avenue when he died in 1945. Only his close family had any idea of what he had been through.

He spent the first part of his Army service in Ireland but when things began to get particularly rough in Europe and the Middle East he readily volunteered for active service overseas.

Private Kay was on his way to Egypt on board the transporter Arcadian, but it was a terrifying voyage out of Malta to, first, Salonika in northern Greece.

They were shadowed by a German U-boat but made it and dropped off hundreds of soldiers for the Serbian front.

They then made a run for Alexandria but the same U-boat was lying in wait and torpedoes sent Arcadian to the bottom in just a few minutes.

Hundreds were drowned but Bill and hundreds more were rescued after hours in the icy water.

With a typical touch of irony the half-drowned men, praying for rescue from the oil-slicked sea, took up the hymn Nearer my God to Thee …

After six hours in the water Bill was picked up just after midnight by a French tramp and went on to Egypt from where he went right through the Palestine campaign, serving under General Allenby.

In his 40s he went on to France where he was blown up, shot at and wounded and showered with shells.

He won his medal for spending seven weeks without respite in no-man's land ahead of the advanced dressing station.

Private William Kay, a little chap who did his duty, received his Medaille d'honneur on parade at Fulwood Barracks a few months after the end of the war.

CAPTIONS:

Private Bill Kay

The Medaille d'honneur

The Arcadian in happier times as a passenger liner.

The Arcadian went down in just a few minutes.