James Cartmell would have been my great-great-uncle, my paternal grandmother's mothers younger brother. He was one of three brothers who fell in the Great War: the loss was still an open wound to my Nan sixty years later. He is recorded as living with my great grandparents (his sister and brother in law) in 1911, and his occupation is given as Engine Cleaner, from which he would have aspired to qualify first as a Fireman and then a Driver. His civilian occupation had a direct effect on his service role, as he was attached to No. 4 Light Railway Company of the Royal Engineers, operating the narrow gauge railways that ferried supplies to the front line. He died less than three months before the armistice, killed by a shell which also took the lives of the two officers commanding his company: all three are buried side by side in Villiers Cemetary.

James was the only one of the three brothers to have married, and left behind a nine month old son named after his youngest brother George, who had been the first of the three to die in 1916.

Although those who knew him have long passed, still we will remember him.

John Harwood