Alexander Leonard Craig was my great-grandmother's brother. The son of a travelling skins salesman, and although from an English family, he had been born in Bruges. Like his father, George Craig, Alexander worked in the skin trade. In 1896 he married Annie Parker in Derby, where they lived, largely untroubled by world affairs until 1914. They had one son, Leonard. At the outbreak of war Alexander joined the 10th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters - one of the local regiments - and, in mid-July 1915, after a brief farewell to his family, crossed the Channel to Boulogne. Alexander's war was to be short. The battalion was sent almost immediately to the Ypres Salient. They fought around St Eloi and eventually moved towards Sanctuary Wood. At some point, although the regimental diary only notes precise details for officer casualties, Alexander Craig was severely wounded. He was moved to the relative safety of a field hospital at Lijssenthoek, several miles from the front line. But on 4 September 1915, aged just 39 years, he died. He was buried in the hospital grounds in a spot that, after the war, was to become the second largest Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium.

NICOLA RIPPON