8th December 2015 Charles Henry Banks Charles was born in 1898 at Kirkby-le-Thorpe. The family moved from Kirkby-le-Thorpe (father’s birthplace) to Stamford (mother’s birthplace) whilst Charles was still at school. With his parents and younger brother Sidney Fred he lived first at 6 High Street St Martins then 8 Wothorpe Road where siblings Evelyn and James were born. In 1911 he was working as an errand boy at Cumberland’s grocery store on the corner of Water Street and High Street, St. Martin’s. In 1915 he tried to enlist in the army but was rejected for military service “for medical reasons” and so he returned to his job as an errand boy. In the first year of the war out of almost 800 men who volunteered in Stamford for military service 200 of them were assessed as medically unfit.