Just discovered your message on Rootschat.
John Henry Barber was my great-grandfather. He was born in Durham on 19 Oct 1870, although his family were in Kidderminster, Worcestershire. His father, Abel, was a rug weaver, and I have yet to discover how John came to be born in Durham, as there are no other family links there. John was brought up in Kidderminster.
At the age of 16, John left home to join the Royal navy as a boy entrant, training and serving on various ships all over the world through the 1880s and 90s.
In 1899, he transferred temporarily to the Coastguard, initially being stationed in Faversham, Kent before being transferred to Kessingland in Suffolk.
This is where he met and married my great-grandmother, Catherine Maud Gouldby (13 years his junior), on 9 Jun 1903 and my grandmother, Pleasance Elizabeth, was born on 13 Aug 1904.
John continued as a coastguardsman and was promoted to Petty Officer in 1910 before retiring with a pension of £1 10/-. In 1911, the census recorded him as a Navy pensioner, while Catherine was recorded as a net mender living at Sea View, Cliff Road, Kessingland.
At the outbreak of war, it seems John re-enlisted and after a short period of training, was back at sea on HMS Fiona, a passenger cruiser requisitioned by the Navy as an "Armed Boarding Vessel". John volunteered for minesweeping duties in Oct 1915 and was drafted to the steam trawler HMT Courtier on minesweeping duties. The Courtier was lost off Kilnsea after striking a mine (probably laid by a German u-boat) with the loss of 12 of the 13 crew, the only survivor being Second Hand William John Ash of Brixham, Devon.
John's daughter, Pleasance, married Leonard Wallace Blowers in 1925, who was also lost at sea when his tug, the Aid, was shelled by German destroyers off Falmouth, Devon in 1940. Their daughter, Maureen, was 6 years old at the time. She joined the WRNS at 18 years old and met my father, Gerald George Roberts, Petty officer RN while serving at Portsmouth. They married in 1956 and moved back to Kessingland in 1958, where I was born in 1961.
I bucked the family trend and joined the RAF! No wonder my grandmother hated the Germans....
I hope that's some help.
