Lives of the First World War

My great-grandfather Benjamin Alec Lane taken before he left for service in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) with the South Wales Borderers. The image is taken from a group photograph of him with his wife and young daughter and son. He knew he was not coming back.

Picture cropped from a larger image of Ben Lane with his wife and young children.

On display in St Mary's Church, Kempley

This is a copy of the certificate Ben was awarded for entering a country show art competition when he was aged 10. The fact that he kept it shows that he must have been proud of it. At a time when people of his class were afforded few opportunities in education, this modest achievement was obviously valued by his family as an indication that he had some degree of talent and an interest in creative pursuits outside of the everyday toil of poor rural folk. Sadly, although his wife (my great-grandmother) kept it among the few mementos she had of her husband, there is no information as to what he drew or whether his work was competing with that of adults. As the award does not specifically state it was a children's competition, I assume it was an open field, and this might explain why it was so treasured by his family. Madresfield Court was at the heart of a vast estate, of which Ben's village of Kempley was only a part, so this competition may have drawn entrants from a wide area.

This is the photo that Ben had taken with is wife Rosina, daughter Mary and baby son Allan, before going off to war.

This is a reference written for Ben Lane, by his former employer Reverend Robert Goodall, when he applied for the post of gardener at Penoyre House near Brecon. It tells us something about Ben's character.

In this letter dated February 6 1917, a mere eight days before he was to be killed, Ben Lane imagines how his two young children will be developing. He closes it, as he nearly always does, with a request that his wife kiss his "dear little ones" for him. (This is included on the second side of the letter which could not be uploaded as one image).

This is a letter written on New Year's Eve 1916, in which Ben Lane describes the weather near Basra at the time and how the men celebrated Christmas with cake and Christmas pudding. He also reveals that it is taking a long time for mail to reach him - a recurring theme in his letters home.

This is the conclusion of the letter entitled Christmas in Mesopotamia. As they were on separate sheets of paper, they could not be uploaded together.

The rather stark fill-in-the-blanks style report of Ben's death sent to his wife Rosina. The document is dated February 22, which was eight days after he was killed.

The second part of a letter dated February 6, 1917, in which Ben refers to the injured at Penoyre, and describes how everything in parcels sent to the men - except for tins - arrives in a smashed-up condition.

This is a leave pass issued to Ben Lane while training at Sniggery Camp near Liverpool. It gave him just 17 and a half hours to get from his base to Penoyre, near Brecon in Wales and back again! He would hardly have had time to see his children who would probably have been in bed by the time he arrived.

This is a letter from a sergeant who served with Ben in which he details where Ben was buried - on the battlefield at Shumran Bend. It was in reply to one of a series of letters from Ben's wife, Rosina, seeking information as to how he died and where he was buried. Dated February 24, 1919, it was written more than two years after Ben's death. As such it shows how persistent she was in trying to find out about her husband's death, and how long it took for messages to be passed on to people who might have detailed knowledge on the subject and the time it took for them to be able to respond.

This is the continuation of the letter sent to Ben wife Rosina in response to her quest for information about her husband's death and burial. In it Sgt SW Cooke describes how Ben was "buried properly but on the battle field" at a place known as the Shumran Bend (of the River Tigris) on "the left side of Kut" where the South Wales Borderers were fighting the Turks. On the first page of the letter Sgt Cooke says he knew Ben "as a very nice man". He pledges to enquire further with grave registration officer to find out more about the grave. This letter also provides information about the death of Harry Clarke, a fellow South Wales Borderer who Ben must have known from Brecon and about whom Rosina also sought information.