The war took charge of countless thousands of people’s lives and reshaped them and the names of Gallipoli, Messines, Menin Road, Passchendaele, Bullecourt and Pozicres became etched in local memories as places of death. Everyone knew a neighbor who had been killed and mothers prayed every night that their boys would come home. Some prayers were answered but others were not so lucky. Mrs Wellings, a distraught mother,composed this Memoriam
Oh the anguish of the mother
Oh the bitter tears she shed
When she heard her boy was missing
And she wondered ‘Is he dead?’
Oh the weeks and months of torture.
Oh the agony and pain
And she wept and prayed and wondered
Would he come to her again
‘Killed in Action’ came still later
Oh the awful truth is bare.59
The funeral of returned soldier John Lynchin 1918. Lynch enlisted with Carmichael’s First Thousand and was repatriated after being gassed in France. He left a widow and five children
who lived at 13 Junction Street,Forest Lodge.(SM,19
June 1918)