Remembrance

As it's Remembrance Sunday, I thought I'd put up a few names of people who fought in the Great War . . . .

My grandfather, FW Pates, who was a sapper with the REME and served in Egypt - apparently there's a photo of him, on a camel in front of the pyramids, on display in an Australian War museum.

My grandmother's brothers - Freeman Langford, who served in India and contracted malaria, was invalided home, sent to a hospital in the northwest and, a couple of years later, married his nurse!

John Langford, of Stretham, who was married with five children when he went off to war.

Ben Langford, also of Stretham, joined the Bedfordshire Regiment in August 1914. He arrived in Belgium on October 6th and was killed at Ypres on 31st October. He is the reason I started this family history lark and I have seen his name on the Menin Gate.

Then there's my friend's uncle who served in the Great War and was a prisoner of the Japanese in the Second World War. Another friend's grandfather who kept a diary during his Great War service - through which she discovered that he was at the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.

I'm sure there were many others but I'm doing this completely without notes; there are more family members on my website if you're interested.

Onwards . . . .