REMEMBERING UNCLE ERNEST...

...who was born in February 2019 and killed on 10th July 1944.  His final resting place is in a cemetery in Northern France at Banneville-la-Campagne.

Today I took this photograph we have of him and superimposed it on the shot of a poppy field, which is quite near to where we live in Wiltshire and Ernest may well have been here in his younger days.

Through some Family History research I did in 2011, we found that Ernest had married Christine in 1942- so we eventually got in touch with her - and stayed in contact until just before she died in 2022 aged 102. 

Aunty Chris told us that she remembered Mr. HCB and his brother, and especially his parents, who were always very kind to her and she was very sad that they had lost touch. She said that after Ernest died, she moved away and of course, it wasn't as easy in those days to keep in touch.  She told us she was upset that she couldn’t even afford to buy a stamp to send a letter to Mr. HCB’s parents.  As you can imagine, it was a very emotional meeting and there were tears!

This photograph of Ernie was kept in Aunty Chris’s purse ever since they were first married and she said that the time they were together were “the happiest days of my life.”

Today, Armistice Day, we remember Uncle Ernest and all those who died that we might be free - we must never forget their sacrifice.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
     Between the crosses, row on row,
          That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
     Scarce heard amid the guns below
          We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
     Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
          In Flanders fields."

Written on 3 May 1915 by Colonel John McRae 
     A Canadian Army Doctor working as a Field Hospital Surgeon
          During the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium