Cook Norman Wilfred Lister
HMS Columbine, Royal Navy

Born at St Anne, Alderney in 1898. Died in 1983 at Jersey. Son of George A & Ann Jane Lidster of High Street, St Anne, Alderney. Brother of George Frederick, Harold Brierley & Sydney Audoire Lidster.
During the war the family moved from Alderney to Sheffield, which was George Arthur, their father's birthplace. He had been garrisoned in Guernsey and Alderney with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and married Ann Jane Audoire on 30/04/1893. Her father was Peter Gaudion Audoire and her mother Jane Gale from Jersey

"Norman was my father. His unit is given as HMS Columbine but I can never remember him using that term; it was always Port Edgar. His ship service was firstly on HMS Amphitrite, a coal burning armoured cruiser,then from 1915 through to 1919, HMS Castor a new light cruiser, leader of the 11th Destroyer Flotilla and later leader of the Grand Fleet Destroyer Flotillas.

As he went up the gang plank to join the Castor he was greeted with a friendly 'Hello, Norman, what are you doing here?' from a petty officer, another Alderney man. This was PO Harry Whales and, interestingly, his entry on your site gives his unit as the ship, not the shore establishment.

My dad learnt his trade as a baker/confectioner in his uncle's bakery, Fred and Teddy Audoire's, and that was his job on the ship. In the night action at Jutland, the cooks were orderlies to the surgeon and I recall he spoke of wicker baskets 'full' of pieces, arms and legs. I have to remind myself that like so many others he was only eighteen. I have a monograph of the ship privately printed in 1919 which gives a Roll of Honour and this includes PO Harry Whales amongst the twenty five wounded.

There were eleven killed in action and one other died of wounds.

The 'Audoires of Alderney' in your Families at War section, shows the four boys. They missed the 'd' out of the surname in the caption but I forgive the reporter. I had no idea this existed."

James Lidster