Bert’s name read out at last

An extra name was read out at Oakham’s annual Remembrance Sunday service. Herbert – Bert – Hibbitt was remembered along with the rest of Oakham’s war dead. Bert’s name is not inscribed on the war memorial – it was built and dedicated before he died in 1923. But Bert was just as much a war casualty after suffering a slow and agonising death after he had been gassed on the Western Front. He had married the nurse who had looked after him in hospital in Derbyshire and he died on their sixth wedding anniversary. His grand-daughter Sharron wrote movingly about following in Bert’s footsteps in an article in the Stories section of this website. You can link to it here. On Sunday, the Reverend Brian Nichols included Bert’s name to the list of Oakham’s Fallen which he read out during the Remembrance Service after reading about him on this site. It’s now hoped Bert’s name will be added to the memorial outside so he will be remembered, like his colleagues, for ever.