Armistice Day

The 11th Hour of the11th Day of the 11th Month

I found these letters from the Chaplain at the field hospital in Boulogne to my Grandmother, in the back of my Mother's bible after she died.
She would have been 6 when her big brother died and his other sisters, my aunts 15,14 and 12.

By the time I appeared on the scene there was another world war being fought, and my Grandmother died just after it ended. I was still only a child and never gave thought to ask about the events so long before I was born.

Now of course, as an adult and mother, I can only guess at the heartache his death caused to my Grandmother, Grandfather, and his sisters. I have three photos of him aged about 11 and 16 and a school report written when he left school to become an apprentice engineer. I will never know any more.

It is ironic that his absence has become such a huge presence in my life.
I now can imagine how devastating it must have been to lose an only son.
I have visited his grave in Wimereux, as has daughter#2, with his great, great nephew Theo aged 5 laying a rose on his grave as the family he would never know remembered.

This morning His Lordship and I stood with others in the field of poppies in Princes Street Gardens for the 2 minute silence at 11 o'clock signalled by a gun shot from the Castle ramparts.