Dear Uncle Harold,

I know the statue that stands in Paddington Station isn't you, it's not my grandmother who knitted that scarf you wear nor did she write the letter you read. But the Unknown Soldier stands for you, one of the millions who served on the Western Front, one of the thousands who never came home.

It was in July 1916 that grandmother read the last letter you wrote from the trenches in France, written just days before you were killed. Forgive me for taking almost a hundred years to reply. You see, everybody knew it was useless to send you a letter. You were nowhere, only a name carved on the War Memorials of England and France.

But now, things have changed. I've been given a chance to write to you.

I've just been reading your last letter again; it must have been painful for you to write, it is painful for us to read. You tell us about the dangers you've been facing, about the 'conditions not fit for beasts', the struggle to get clean after weeks in the trenches, wallowing in mud and filth and sleeping with rats'. You end your letter with your hopes to 'be able to come home on leave shortly.' But that was not to be.

A tear escapes as I write, not because I remember you, you died long before I was born. I grieve because I never knew you, because so many families, like my own, mourned their lost sons, because I've read the letters you wrote from the front and understand a little of how you suffered,

Uncle Harold, as we re-read the letters you wrote and share them with younger generations of your family, I'd just like you to tell you, that you not unknown to us, nor do we forget you.

Next time my journey takes me through Paddington Station, I'll look you up. That's a promise.

Jean Wilson

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