Remembering lives

I noticed this oil painting in a shop in House of Bruar today. It makes me think of days gone by and seems fitting for today. It reminds me of an old writing bureau in my grandmother's house. She was orphaned in the late stages of World War one, aged only 1, when her mother died at home almost at the same time her husband, my gran's father, died in the Battle of Pip Ridge, Salonika on 18th September 1918. The Royal Scots Fusiliers suffered catastrophic losses when the strength of the Bulgarian enemy was underestimated in a frontal assault of a heavily defended mountain ridge. My great-grandfather, John Sharp, aged 30, lost his life, along with many of his comrades. He has a war grave in Doiran cemetery at the Macedonian/Greek border.

Lest we forget.

This painting is called 'Ephemera' by Ian Mastin, an Englishman who now lives in Queensland, Australia.