IT MAY SEEM STRANGE.....

…..to see a French Lavender flower on Armistice Day but this is my tribute to Mr. HCB’s Uncle, Lieutenant Corporal Ernest Sidney Iles, who was killed in action on 10th July 1944 and whose grave is at Banneville, Normandy, Northern France.

Ernest was born in 1919 and married Christine in March 1942 - just before he went to France. After researching Mr. HCB’s family history, I found that Christine had married again and eventually tracked her down, through her daughter from her second marriage.. She is now 94 years old and lives quite near to us in Banbury and we are often in touch by email!

We went to see her some months ago, and it was a very emotional meeting, as you can imagine. She said she remembered Mr. HCB as a baby and although she had moved away after Ernest died, she had never forgotten the kindness that Mr. HCB's mother had shown her. Sadly she and Ernest never had any children, but she told us that they had planned to have two and had hoped to live near Mr. HCB’s parents.

She said that she had carried a photograph of Ernest in her purse ever since he had gone to war, 70 years ago. I have been in touch with her daughter, who tells me that her mother never spoke of Ernest to her.

We rang Aunty Chris last night and Mr. HCB told her that we had thought of her and Ernest the day before at church, and when we had been invited to write someone’s name on a poppy to put at the foot of the cross, we had both written Ernest’s name - she was obviously very moved by that.

So, back to the French lavender flower - I saw them in our front garden this morning and thought it would be rather nice to pay tribute to Ernest, who as I mentioned, is buried in France - incidentally, the name of the lavender is “Victory”!

The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the Eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given,
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)