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Somme Trip-PomPom Whiting Arras

BartramBlitzBartramBlitz
edited July 2019 in General Charlton
Following Henry's last post, here is a link to a short film we made at Westminster Archives about Pom Pom Whiting. 

Pom Pom was a goalkeeper with West Ham, Tunbridge Wells Rangers, Chelsea and Brighton. His nick name was linked to the power of his kicking, which West Ham fans compared to Hiram Maxim's Pom Pom gun. This gun, made locally by Vickers at Erith,had  been used by the Boers against the British army in South Africa just as Whiting began to make a name for himself at West Ham.

Whiting joined the Football Battalion in 1915 with the Brighton squad and served alongside Walter Tull in the trenches around Loos.   At the beginning of 1916 he was sent home suffering with scabies, thus missing the devastating start of the Battle of the Somme. He  was treated in a hospital in Brighton and it was during his recovery he heard his brother Joe had been killed on the Somme. He was still coming to terms with this when his wife told him she was pregnant, so he went AWOL.

Pom Pom was captured after 133 days and was court martialled the day his son was born. Offered the chance to redeem himself he died at the Battle of Arras trying to save a wounded friend. Sadly he never go to see his baby son, who he named Joe after his brother.

Pom Pom has no known grave and is on the Arras memorial which we visited with Clive on our last day 

We made this film with autistic children from College Park School, Westminster.

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    swords_aliveswords_alive
    Hence also the Pom Pom fish and kebab shop on Alford road, Erith,  off Fraser road, near where the Vickers factory was.
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    BartramBlitzBartramBlitz
     It was the power and length of Pom Pom Whiting's  kicking that got him his nickname. The Pom Pom was made in Erith, it was a bigger version of the Maxim machine gun that was made in Crayford. Before WW1 the British army was slow to take it up. However in the Boer War in South Africa, 1900_02 the Boers managed to get hold of the gun with devastating effect. Soldiers returning from South Africa naturally referenced their recent experience in the war. Hence, East Ender's nick naming Bob Whiting and many terraces getting the name Kop after Spoon Kop one of the famous battle spots.
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    BartramBlitzBartramBlitz
    edited July 2019
    Pom Pom is still revered in Brighton as he was part of their 'Champions of All England' side. In Edwardian times the winners of the Football League would play the winners of the Southern League for the Charity Shield. The winners were declared Champions of All England.  Brighton, with Pom Pom in goal, were winners of the Southern and beat Football League Champions Aston Villa 1-0 at Stamford Bridge in 1910. It's Brighton's only trophy in their history. If you ever get the park and ride into Brighton from Withdean stadium you pass along Dyke Road. One of the Edwardian mansions built in 1910 has the Charity Shield and date 1910 set into the gable.
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    BartramBlitzBartramBlitz
    By the way if you want to watch the film just click on the Vimeo tab.
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