My Great War Hero

G.50644, Pte. Stanley Lawrence, 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, Acting Corporal No. 2 Platoon


These are his cap badge and his campaign medals - the British War Medal, 1914-18 and the Allied Victory Medal.

My Dad's father survived the horrors of the trenches at Ypres and other Western Front campaigns and went through the nightmare of being gassed. He married his sweetheart Ethel two years after the Great War ended. He died in January 1949, aged 53, having never spoken a word about his battlefield experiences since February 1919, when he was transferred out of his regiment into the Army Reserve.

I never knew my grandfather, but I am nevertheless proud of his courage as a volunteer soldier in the First World War.