A contemporary newspaper records the following account:

"Two schoolboys gave their lives for a comrade at Hoole, Chester. After school hours, Henry Berry, eight, and George Goodfellow, eleven, visited a deep pit near their homes with a view of testing the ice covering it. There were a number of other lads present and one, Bertie Wright, a son of the Chester Police Court missionary ventured on to the ice as far as the centre of the pond. The ice broke and he went under, but Berry and Goodfellow pluckily went to his assistance. It was not long before all three were struggling together in the water. Wright, however, managed to keep afloat until rescued by some workmen, but the two little heroes who had gone out to save him sank and their lifeless bodies were not recovered until half an hour later".

Jill Belcher, who originally told us the story and sent the photographs, wrote on Memorial Day 2014, "George and Harry died trying to save Bertie Wright, who was my grandfather. That's why we decided it was up to us to restore the memorial. It's a great tribute to stonemason Stephen Blackwell whose family business is close by.

George and Harry both lived in Clare Avenue- Henry at 36 and George at 18- and the tragedy happened in 'a field adjoining Clare Avenue'. George Evans, who pulled my grandfather out, was working on 'some houses in course of erection in Clare Avenue.'

Bertie went on to fight in World War I in the Canadian Army and his son- my dad- was a Spitfire pilot in World War II so, as you can imagine, I've been thinking about them a lot today, of all days.. it's really quite amazing that I, my children and my grandchildren have had the chance of life.

We would love to trace George Evans' s family, because we owe him an equal debt. He really did put his life on the line to save Bertie and I hope his descendants know about this and are suitably proud of him."

Jackie Forrestal, a relation of George Goodfellow, told us, "It is a wonderful 'small world story' -- the sense of enormous gratitude carried down through the generations by descendants of Bertie Wright has now been felt deeply by descendants of George Goodfellow here in the United States. We find it truly incredible for the sense of gratitude to have been passed from generation to generation. Now we have to find Henry Berry's descendants".

Can anyone help? I'm trying to pin down further details of this story. The tragedy happened in 1905. I was under the impression that Clare Avenue was laid out in 1898, that being the date shown on the nameplate on the corner. The account says that the builder who rescued the surviving lad was "working on houses in Clare Avenue" at the time.
Lime Grove, at least my side, appeared in 1904 and the other side in 1910- where the big pond shown on the old OS map below once was. It could easily have still been there in 1905. I'm surprised, though, that the smaller, Clare Avenue pond hadn't been filled in and built over by then. Any thoughts dear readers? Does anyone have better quality maps of the area before it was developed? All information much appreciated, as ever.

The grave number of the brave boys' memorial in Overleigh Cemetery is 5043. As may be seen from the photographs above, the memorial was in a truly terrible condition before Jill's family stepped in. Just look at it now!