Sapper Joseph Tocher

Sapper Joseph Tocher , Headquarters Special Company, Royal Engineers. He died from wounds. aged 39, suffered during the Battle of the Somme in France on 5th November 1916 and was buried in Longueval Road Cemetery, France. He had been born in Eccles and was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Tocher and the brother of Queenie Brims of Coldstream. He was the brother of Joseph ( see above) and the uncle of Elizabeth Williams who lives in Coldstream. Before enlisting he had been employed as a plasterer and was living in Stanley, Co. Durham. The photographs show how the autumn rains turned this ground into a glutinous quagmire which made movement difficult for men, horses and guns. The colour photo shows part of the Somme battlefield as it looks today with ” no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”