My name is George Easden. I am the son of Frederick Easden who married my mother, Harriet Victoria nee Strange, in 1876. I was born in 1882. I was one of ten children. My siblings were Frederick, Alice, Frank, William, Ellen Nellie, Florence Annie, Charles, Arthur and Gilbert.
In 1891 I was living with my parents at 11, Townfield Road, High Wycombe. My father was a chair maker. My younger brother William was a wood working machinist. He married Ellen Horseman in 1909 and in 1911 they were living at 14, The Barracks, High Wycombe and had one daughter Florence Nellie aged 7mths. I was close to my brother and before he was killed in the Great War he had asked Ellen to marry me if anything happened to him. William was killed at the Front in 1917 and Ellen and I married in 1921 but our marriage was to be short-lived.
In 1911 I was working as a male nurse in the hospital for the insane in Old Windsor, Berkshire. During the war I went off to do my bit. Unfortunately, like many of the soldiers, I led an active social life in my free time and enjoyed 'wine, women and song' as they say. When I returned home I found that I was ill with a sexually transmitted disease. I was admitted to Stone Mental Asylum, near Aylesbury and died in 1923 at least a year after my admission. The cause of my death was general paralysis which is associated with syphilis. Ellen tried to claim a widow's pension, implying that she believed my condition was war related but she did not receive one. So Ellen really had rather a rough time of it because of the war, first William's death, then my hospitalisation and then, in 1922, she had a child with a married man. After my death she married William George Marison and they lived in Boundary Road, Loudwater. She was to eventually die of TB. Both she and William are buried in Wooburn Cemetery.
I am buried in a public grave here in High Wycombe Cemetery and my burial records state that I was 40 years of age when I died. I am listed as an ex-soldier. Ellen believed I was a casualty of the war even though I wasn't recognised as such. Many men contracted sexually transmitted diseases during the war because of the brothels which they visited during their off-duty time. Quite often there were more men in the hospitals suffering from these infections than there were men suffering from war wounds!
Researched by Ruth Bowler, Flackwell Local Area History Group and Leanne Campbell, Easden relative.
