Dear Ernest, My grandmother, your sister Edith, received your last letter posted on 13 April 1918 but was never able to reply to it because by then she knew that you had been killed. “Blown to bits” she used to tell us when we were children, killed on 22 April 1918 with other soldiers of The Lancashire Fusiliers near Rietz du Vinage. We have been to the village – such a small place but, according to the records, an important German strong point that had to be taken. Fighting went on around the village for a week and on 22 April the Lancashire Fusiliers crossed the nearby La Bassee Canal under heavy shellfire aiming to take the far bank. It was here that you and over 50 comrades were killed. My grandmother said you had no grave and your name was inscribed on the memorial wall at Dud Corner Cemetery by the Loos battlefield. That isn’t close to where you died – some of your comrades are near Rietz in Mont-Bernanchon Cemetery – but it is the nearest cemetery with a memorial wall. She would want you to know that she never forgot you: she treasured your letter and your photograph, the one of you in your hospital uniform when you were sent home injured, blinded by gas, taken before that last time you were sent back to the front. It was always in a frame on her sideboard and I grew up knowing your face. I know you didn’t want to be in France fighting. I expect it was all right when you first joined up. You probably went with some mates, you’d never been anywhere much and I expect it was quite exciting to begin with. By the time you wrote that letter, though, you’d been hurt, you’d seen terrible things and you’d been afraid. All you wanted was to get back to the safety of your home, to see your mum and dad, your sisters and your new nephew and never have to go away again. You were very young, Ernest, only twenty. You had no time to do all the things you wanted to do or to find out what you might have become. You won no medals and even your records are lost so we will never know when you joined up or where else you served. Perhaps you think your life made no difference to the world but you were loved and missed. My grandmother’s stories made me want to find out more about you and having done that to find out more about the war in which you died. We have visited the Loos memorial many times and seen your name on the wall with hundreds of other young men who have no known grave and we have travelled to Rietz du Vinage to try to comprehend the battle in which you died. My desire to understand led to me studying for a Masters degree in British First World War Studies which I completed in 2013. Despite this, I still find it hard to grasp the scale of a conflict that claimed so many young lives and I come back over and over again to your photograph and your letter which I now treasure as my grandmother did and which reminds me that behind all those gravestones and names on walls are stories like yours, Ernest, of ordinary young men lost and missed for the whole lifetimes of the people who loved them. You are remembered. Your great-nephew, Malcolm Doolin

Malcolm Doolin