Drybrook Rugby Club

Former Drybrook player Andrew Mason visited the Tyne Cott Cemetery and the Menin Gate Memorial over the weekend, at the ceremonies to mark 100 years since the end of the Great War.
He laid a wreath to remember all those from Drybrook and District who lost their lives in war but particularly for two Drybrook rugby players Herbert Jacques and Reginald Betteridge.
The wreath contained a Drybrook RFC badge.

The Herbert Forester Jacques (Bertie) grave at Essex Farm Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium.

Both Bertie and Reginald appear on the 1913/14 photograph of the rugby club displayed in the club house.

Herbert Forester Jacques (Bertie) was a Lance Corporal in the 13th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. He lost his life as the result of the bursting of a shell on 10th June 1917 and was laid to rest in Essex Farm Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium.
Aged 23, Bertie lived at the Hawthorns, Drybrook and was a coal miner at Crump Meadow Colliery. He was the first Drybrook player to be selected for the Forest of Dean Combination XV.

Reginald James Betteridge was a sergeant in the 10th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment and was killed in action at the battle of Loos on 25th September 1915.
He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Loos Memorial to the missing.
Aged 25, he lived at The Branch, Steam Mills and was a clerk at the Cannop Coal Company.