For many years a scroll addressed to Robert Charles Lewis, my great grandfather, has been kept safe in a drawer. The sad event it commemorates; that Robert Lewis, his son had been killed in action in 1917, is the news that every family and friend must have dreaded. Robert Lewis was my grandmother's brother, one of many siblings, and very little is known abut him within the family. The scroll and the information it contains is all I have and it saddens me that the circumstances and recognition of his death is recorded, whereas his life is a mystery. That anyone should suffer the appalling conditions of the trenches, bearing witness to and experiencing such suffering is incomprehensible today. To remember and recognise the suffering, inhumanity and enormous sacrifice is hugely important, though will never make up for lives lost. It is an honour for me to honour this brave man, Rifleman Robert Lewis.

Katie Dare