Walter Major was my grandfather who, at the time of his death, left a young wife, Sybil, and a son Walter,  my father, who was born in June 1916. Sybil was also expecting another child, my uncle Arthur, born in August 1918. 

How many other young women would have lost their husbands  and been left in similar circumstances - it breaks my heart to think how courageous they must have been to not only lose the young men they loved, but to carry on with their own lives, bringing up fatherless children.

June Crompton