At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the Armistice that marked the end of the First World War took effect.

Now, on the closest Sunday to November 11th, we pause to remember all those who lost their lives in war.

The Hunts Post: David Landon Cole is the mayor of Huntingdon. David Landon Cole is the mayor of Huntingdon. (Image: ARCHANT)

 

 

 

 

I know this is a particularly poignant moment for those who served in the armed forces, and the friends and family of those who never came back. As well as the two World Wars, we remember the dead of the other conflicts - not least Iraq, Afghanistan, and, particularly as we commemorate its fortieth anniversary, the Falklands War.

In the unimaginable numbers of dead of the First and Second World Wars, what always brings home Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday to me are the personal stories.

I always think of a relative of mine, Jack Saunders, who died at the age of 22 on the 29th of May of 1918. Even at that young age, he had had a remarkable life, having emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, before departing there in December 1914 to join the war.

In June 1915, Pvt 1446 JEA Saunders of the 14th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment arrived in France. He was awarded the Military Medal on 14th December 1916 for repeatedly repairing telegraph wires while under heavy artillery fire.

In May 1917, he was wounded, and recuperated in Cork. He would return to the front, and would be killed, along with some of his comrades while asleep in a barn, by a stray bomb, one hundred and sixty-six days before the Armistice.

Jack Saunders now rests in Thiennes British Cemetery - a small cemetery, literally in the corner of a foreign field - that is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

While we’ve pieced together a lot of his story, I’ve often wondered who he was, and who he would have been. For my father growing up, he was the missing uncle. Had he reached his eighties, I could well have known him, the children he never had, the stories he was never able to tell. 

There are many stories like Jack’s - some from wars from which no veterans are left to speak, some from conflicts still ongoing. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.