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On Saturday, February 6th 1915 a family of Belgian refugees - a man, wife and 6 children - was welcomed to Beachampton. The husband began work on a neighbouring farm on the following Tuesday, having before the war been a coachman at Antwerp.


After some three years as Chaplain to the Bucks Army Cadet Force, and rector of Nash with Thornton and Beachampton, in early 1960 the Reverend C. Cassidy left to take up an appointment as vicar of Waxham with Palling, in the diocese of Norwich. He would begin his duties on January 20th, and with him would be his son and daughter in law, Mr. and Mrs. John Cassidy. John had been teaching at Wolverton County Secondary School, and his wife had been the organist at Beachampton Church. At the outbreak of World War One, the Reverend had been a regular officer at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but within a year he had to be invalided out of the Forces, having been poisoned by a German spy. As one of a draft of 30 officers, he had been sent to the Somme, where on arrival they were told by a man wearing the uniform of an R.A.M.C. officer that they were to be inoculated. However, the injections were of poison, administered by a German wearing the uniform of a doctor, and some of the ‘patients’ did not survive. Mr. Cassidy was ordained after being invalided out of the army, and during World War Two served as a Chaplain in the R.N.V.R. at Atlantic patrol bases in Iceland, Whale Island and Devonport among other places.