When I was seventeen, we went on a school trip to the battlefields of Northern France. My maternal grandmother told me a little bit about my great-uncle, Reginald Ralph Ogborne, and said that he was buried in a cemetery out there. I told the teachers who were taking us, but had not expected them to not only find out which cemetery it was, but to take us there. It was a beautifully calm evening and we reached the cemetery not long before the sun started going down. After days of being almost overwhelmed by the dignity and size of the bigger cemeteries we had visited, it was a strange and humbling experience to stand in a quiet, small cemetery at the grave of a family member of whom I had only heard a few months previously. I will always be grateful to the teachers for taking us there that evening. My grandmother died the following year, so I am particularly pleased that she told me about my great-uncle and that, in this centenary year, I can remember him on behalf of her and her family.

Georgina Hildick-Smith