About the Author
~ Noel K Hannan ~
My name is Noel K Hannan. I am 36 and have lived in Crewe, Cheshire,all of my life. When I first became aware of the existence of the 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers, through the books of local historian Brian Edge, it seemed as if the task of providing some kind of factual memorial to the unit was made for me. Although I don't claim to be a skilled historian of any kind, I am intensely interested in military history and in particular reserve units -I have been a reserve soldier, with various units, for over thirteen years, and many people will be familiar with my writing career, which has generally been confined to fiction. Hopefully, both these attributes will enable me to make this site, and any subsequent book, entertaining, factual and logical.
Obviously, I will need a great deal of help in order to reconstruct the campaigns, personalities, organisations and events that occurred a hundred years ago. If you have an interest in the Boer War, please contact me, preferably by email, and I will register you for updates to this site, which will hopefully be on a monthly basis. If you have some information for me, please send it on - I am interested in anything from the period that may provide further clues to the activities of the unit. I am hoping that some of the letters sent home by the men may have survived, and if they can be found, I will publish them here with the permission of the owners and/or surviving relatives.
I hope you enjoy the site and the subsequent updates. Please be aware it is a site in progress and currently a bit 'thin'. That will change soon!
Update January 2003
In 2002 I completed a multimedia installation using Macromedia Director based on the content of the Railway Volunteers site for my degree in Applied Computing (I would tell you that I got a First, but that would just be boasting). I will be porting the installation to Shockwave format and placing it on the site soon.
I have also added some information to the Roll of Honour regarding Lt Trotter. A relative of the elusive "Sapper Poppie" has also provided me with some information about her identity which I will be adding very soon!
Stay tuned for a Railway Volunteers Gallery with over 50 photographs.
