Talk:Alex Currie

Michael Currie, 15 March 2019

Why didn't Alex Currie serve in WWI?

He would have been about 25 when war was declared on 4 August 1914, and working as a station agent somewhere around Port Arthur. He would have married just a few weeks prior, on 3 June 1914 in Port Arthur.

This question occurred to me as I was studying if we have any relation to General Arthur Currie (we do not):

http://curriepedia.org/index.php/Arthur_Currie_connection_to_Michael_Currie

Ron Currie, 15 March 2019:

I don't know.

Bill Currie, 16 March 2019:

I have occasionally wondered about this as well but never asked anyone who might have actually known. However I offer these speculations:

1. Because he didn’t have to and didn’t want to. Very prescient of him considering what it turned out to be like. There were lots of young men, patriotic (to Britain, the mother country) or eager for “glory”, who signed up early on, especially if they had no better job prospects but I don’t think he was in either of those categories.

2. By the time conscription was enacted (1917 - young men and their parents had wised up by then), he was over conscription age, plus he had a meaningful job with what was probably regarded as an essential service at the time.

Good job for us he didn’t go; we wouldn’t be here (or anywhere).