‘Lincoln’s story’ a term given to us to summarise our research into The Beechey brothers, many people feel this story is not told enough and not enough people know about it. The case of the Beechey brothers is very famous due to the nature of the case. A woman, Amy who lived on Monks Road in Lincoln had eight children, five of which fought in battles such as The Somme and fought in countries such as Australia, all five of these children died, the only other case of a situation like this was in Gloucester. The Queen praised Amy Beechey for her sacrifice, Amy’s reply was this ‘It was no sacrifice Ma’am. I did not give them willingly’.
Further research has given us a personal connection to the story, Amy Beechey left to the Lincolnshire Archives many of her sons personal items, such as letters form the boys that they sent home, documents and death certificates. We have spent quite some time looking over these letters and documents trying to gain an understanding as to how they felt and what was going on at the time. We realised that for these boys the letters were a vice, a means for them to make it through each day, upon further research we found many men who fought the war had vices such as art, poetry, reading and writing. Although further research is needed, I don’t feel it is ever possible to truly understand what these men have lived through and seen, I feel it is possible though, to create a sensitive performance that does not just state the facts of their life and story but instead attempts to make audience members aware of significant emotional extracts.
The personal connection we feel, comes from a relatable relationship of family members, we gain a sense of Amy Beechey’s fear for her sons lives and understand the level of pain she must of felt every time she received a letter. The pride she felt as they entered and the pain as they departed. We can not help but to see the wider scale of this, this city must have been a city of sorrow as around 20% of lives are taken. Leaving so many citizens in the city devastated, not just mothers, but brothers, sisters, fathers and friends. We are yet to find a suitable way t represent the devastation, and to demonstrate an understanding of the amount of lives lost.
Amy had eight sons and five daughters, Harold and Christopher went to Australia prior to the war. Harold was killed at Gallipoli and Christopher was wounded, his injuries so severe that he was unable to walk.
There are three families who lost five sons in WWI. The Beechey family, the Soul family from Gloucestershire and the Smith family from Barnard Castle. By a cruel twist of fate the Beechey and Soul families both have sons buried at St Sever Cemetery near Rouen.
I wonder what the connection might be with the Beechey’s who first arrived in Australia on the 2nd Fleet in 1780?