Thanks Phil....extremely helpful.
I still can't get onto Ancestry.....says my e-mail address is already in use and I can't get the password reset e-mail for some reason. I'll be in touch if I find out more. The Russian business was definitely talked about when I was a child....I wonder if Francis could have been "seconded" or temporarily attached to another unit....especially as he was on training duties at the end of the war.
"Civil Service Rifles" is a phrase which I heard as a child but had completely forgotten !
Just out of interest here is a little bit of what I rember of Francis concerning "his war" :
When I was young I remember my Uncle showing me a pencil written account of this service which he had probably intended to write up in more detail at a later date which made a deep impression on me. Unfortunately this account disappeared after my Uncle's death. Essentially, my memory of the account's contents are of a description of various places where Francis had been stationed "fleshed out" with incidental details. Such details include : Digging trenches in a sector where the French had been previously and digging up skeletons.; Buying food from the locals.; Being bayoneted in the hand during a raid on the German trenches.; Shooting his "first Bosch for certain".; Meeting up with "Stan" (his brother) fairly late in the war. There was also a detailed account of an attack on German positions (I think at High Wood on the Somme but I am not certain of this) during which he was seriously wounded. In this part of the account Francis writes that after being issued with extra ammunition the troops were moved up communication trenches to a "jump off point" on the evening before the planned offensive. Francis noted that those who would be killed the following day were "strangely silent". He described going forward over no-man's land the following morning. Francis states that he was in the "first wave" and that after progressing some distance under fire he turned and found that he was virtually alone, just about all his fellow soldiers in the first wave having been killed or wounded. Francis decided to take cover in a shell crater and await the Second Wave which he saw starting from their "jump off positions". He states that the Germans were so unconcerned by the British Attack as to be actually standing on their trench parapet in order to take better aim. At some point, presumably after joining the second wave, Francis was shot in the neck. Incredibly he survived this wound and managed to take cover in a shell crater until nightfall when he crawled back to the British front line and was then taken to a dressing station. At some point during his recovery from this wound Francis met my Grandmother who was serving in France as a nurse. When young I remember seeing a photograph of Ella sitting in her nurse's uniform on a horse drawn ambulance. This photograph has also saddly disappeared. Along with Francis' account of his war service I also remember seeing his Field Orders book and his Platoon book. This latter had a list of men in Francis' platoon. After the list of names were the letters K or W written in blue crayon. The K indicated "killed" and the W "wounded"; to my memory, out of about 20 names only about 2 or 3 were not so marked. Most of the Orders in the Field Service Book were written in code and/or shorthand. As an accountant before the war Francis had learned this skill. There were qite a few sketched trench maps, and, most interestingly little cartoons and sketches in pencil and watercolour of broken trees, barbed wire etc. etc. Unfortunately both these books can no longer traced. There exist two family stories about Francis' war service which I have not yet been able to verify. Firstly that after recovering from his wound his was put on training duties, and, whilst teaching young recruits the use of the Mills Bomb grenade he was wounded in the side of the face and presumably the hand by an accidental explosion. Secondly that he was ordered to Archangel in 1919-20, probably as an advisor/trainer to aid the White Russian forces in their struggle against the Bolcheviks.
