Lest I forget

Next year marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, in which both of my grandfathers were killed. Today I looked out some of the tragic family mementos that have been passed down to me. Those I have pictured were among the effects of my paternal grandfather, found on his body after he fell. You can see what he carried in his homemade blue toilet bag, along with his dogtag, a purse and a couple of coins, and his teaspoon. In due course his belongings were returned to my Granny in Leith. I can only begin to imagine how she - and hundreds of thousands of war widows like her - must have felt. Grandad served with the Royal Garrison Artillery, on the "Big Guns", and is buried in Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetery on the Somme in France. His headstone records the date he died in action: August 12, 1918 - just three months before the war ended.