Raphael Sangorski is a pseudonym, a pen-name – but it is not a made-up name, he was real, a real person.
The real Raphael was actually my father’s cousin. He was born in October 1897, and as happened to so many of his generation he was called up into the army during the Great War, in his case in November 1916. Just an ordinary young man, he was training to be like his father and his uncle, a book-binder and illuminator. As a resident of the Hammersmith area of London, he joined the 7th battalion of the London Regiment, a unit composed mainly of territorials with very few experienced serving soldiers, and after a brief period of training he was among many thousands of raw conscripts shipped out to France, landing at Le Havre in January of the following year.
The exact details of this next part of his life are unknown, but on the 21st of May 1917 his unit was sent up to the front as part of the Arras offensive, to a small village named Bullecourt, and on the 30th of May he was killed there in the service of his country, having been in the firing line for only two days. He was just nineteen years of age.
He had learned his craft at the renowned Camden School, and was already showing great promise as a gifted artist and technician. Some examples of his work remains – some sketches, paintings, illuminated manuscripts and leather-bound books. There are photographs of most of his family – his father, his mother, his uncles and both his sisters, but sadly there is no known photograph of him. A leather-bound book – the binding made by him – contains a poignant inscription in his father’s hand –
“Went for a soldier Nov 2 1916, in the firing line May 1917 –
Killed May 30 1917. Never forgotten.”
Apart from his grave in a huge war cemetery in France, the only surviving memorial of his war effort are his two service medals and his ‘widow’s plaque’, presented to the families of all the countless thousands of similar ordinary young men, the conscripted British servicemen killed between 1914 and 1918.
These books are written in his name and dedicated to his memory.
The Desolate Tree 