Gorman, Edward

Private Edward Graham Gorman

General Service Medal

Army Service Corps.

1918 - December 18.

GRAHAM GORMAN was born in Peebles, and educated at Kingsland School. Thereafter he spent a short time in March Street Mills as an apprentice at tweed manufacture. But his inclination lay toward

engineering; so after an interval he departed for Edinburgh and took up motoring. He became proficient in time; thenceforward cars and their mechanism formed both his vocation and his hobby. His first situation was with Dr Gimn at Peebles, where for a considerable period he drove the car with the Doctor and himself, by night and by day, in summer and winter, along the main roads and hill-roads of Tweeddale. For a short time thereafter he assisted a brother-in-law on his farm in Essex ; but when the war broke out in 1914 Graham Gorman heard the call, and hastened to place his experience and skill in motoring at the service of his country. He was employed in France during the whole period of his enlistment, and was seldom out of the danger zones, conveying officers in cars to the front. He

received the 1914-15 Star, and for his services was awarded the General Service Medal. He experienced many risks, and underwent much exposure. From his most serious accident, when his car by night disappeared into a deep shell crater, he never fully recovered.

The hardships he had gone through weakened his constitution and opened the door 10 serious infection. He returned home to Peebles in bad health, where he was affectionately nursed by his sister, Mrs Hunter, Oak Cottage, Old Town, whose husband had already lost two gallant sons in the war. He bore his prolonged sufferings silently and bravely, and the end for this world came on the 18th December 1918. The following hymn pleased him much in his latter days:

Brother, now thy toils are o'er,

Fought the battle, won the crown,

On life's rough and barren shore

Thou hast laid thy burden down:

Grant him, Lord, eternal rest