I think "J E Markland" is Sapper John Edward Markland from Bolton, Lancashire - his papers show that he was training at Chatham at the same time as Ernest and his signature is very similar to that on the postcard.
John was born in 1861 so he would have been 56 when Ernest first met him in 1917 - well past the age when men were expected to fight. According to the 1911 census, he worked as an electrician at a cotton mill and lived at 3 Swan Lane, Bolton with his wife Eliza, two sons (William and Harold) and 76 year old father John, a retired mill worker.
John's eldest son, William, was killed on 9 June 1917 fighting with 8th Battalion The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and is commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres. Second son Harold was in the same regiment but survived the war.
John had actually signed up with the Royal Engineers in December 1915, well before his son's death, and, looking at the medal ribbon on his uniform, he had previous military experience although I haven't been able to find any records of his earlier service.
Comparing the medal ribbon with pictures on Wikipedia, the first of the four medal bars, on the left, looks to be the India General Service medal which was awarded from 1856 up to 1895. Although John was at home at the time of both the 1881 and 1891 censuses, he did not marry until 1892 when he was aged 30/31, so there was a period of ten years during which he could have joined the army and served abroad.
It looks as though John was in the UK through much of the 1890s - he and his wife Eliza (nee Sankey) had three children (all born in Bolton) during that period - William (b. 1893), Harold Sankey (b.1895 d. 1896) and Harold (b. 1899). However, he must have remained in the volunteers as the second bar on the ribbon looks like the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee medal. I understand this was presented to men involved in the Jubilee procession on 22 June 1897 or the military review which took place a few days later at Aldershot in the presence of the Queen (London Gazette 14 March 1898). Several Lancashire regiments were represented in the Jubilee celebrations including the Loyal North Lancashires (Morning Post, 15 and 28 June 1897) - perhaps John's son William joined his father's old regiment when he enlisted.
The other two medals on the ribbon could well be the Queen's South Africa medal and the King's South Africa medal. So, by the turn of the century, John must have been back in the army, fighting in the 2nd Boer War. It seems that the King's South Africa medal was awarded to men who served in South Africa on or after 1 Jan 1902 and who had completed 18 months service in that campaign. However, there must have been a break in his period of service as he was living with his parents at 3 Swan Lane, Bolton at the time of the 1901 census, whilst his wife and children were at her parents' house in the High Street. Perhaps Eliza she had moved in with them whilst John was overseas and they didn't have the room for him when he got back, particularly if he had returned unexpectedly because he was wounded.
In any event the family were all back together in 1911, living at 3 Swan Lane with John's widowed father.
When WW1 broke out, John was so keen to do his bit that he gave his age as 35 rather than 55. It seems very unlikely that the recruiting officers believed him but they were obviously prepared to go along with it, possibly because he had useful skills. He joined 5th Provisional Field Company to begin with and was mobilized at Chatham on 12 October 1916. His trade is described as "Fortress engine driver" and his classification "superior". John joined B Company on 21 July 1917, 6 weeks after the death of his son, and immediately went through training in drill and musketry. He was posted to Mesopotamia in February 1918 and was subsequently transferred to India in March 1918.
This is a photo of the Mesopotamia draft taken at Chatham before departure overseas. John is in the 3rd row, 5th from the right, just behind the two officers.
John Markland survived the war and was discharged on 6 June 1920. He died in Bolton in 1932 aged 71.
Information was taken from military, census and BMD records on Ancestry.co.uk and the British Newspaper Archive.
