Codford Training Camp 1917: Danny & Carol Hopkins
We visited Codford in 2019 - just prior to Covid - and looked at the church and fields behind it. We were lucky enough to meet a lovely couple cleaning out the church, who told us where the camp would have been and showed us the graveyard and church and a bit about the village. We can only say, you have a beautiful village, and it was fantastic to see where my grandfather had been.
Granddad - Albert Youl - was a Corporal with the Otago Regiment of the NZ Army and was posted to the training camp in Codford for a short period (17 August 1917 to 26 October 1917) before shipping out to France and Belgium. He had moved to New Zealand, from the UK, in early 1914. He and his father worked their passage over as Stewards on a passenger steamer. Albert had the intention of setting himself up before bringing his sweetheart over as his wife.
Plans were interrupted by the war, but on his return to the UK, he was able to keep in touch with her in London, a lot quicker and easier. These postcards, and others from France were kept by my grandmother, bought to NZ in 1919 and handed down through my mother to me. The original postcards have faded to that lovely sepia tone , so I've adjusted them a bit, more towards the original B&W. The postcards were produced by The Aotearoa Club during WW1, all were collected by my grandfather and sent to his fiance in London in 1917, hence the writing on the back.
