‘You’re going to be surprised, Wayne told me’
Poignant epitaphs inspire new war poem
took her details. After the train arrived at Euston, he did some investigation using census data and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
And just days later he emailed Mrs Armin to tell her Thomas was buried at the town of Bethune in northern France. He even visited the war cemetery to pay his respects and take a photograph of the site for her.
Pte Bryan served with the 2nd Battalion the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and was shot by machinegun fire on May 18, 1915.
It was during the 10-day battle which cost the lives of 16,648 British servicemen. He died from wounds in a military hospital.
Mrs Armin struggled to trace him because so many men killed in the war shared his name.
The retired airline worker said: “My grandma used to talk about him fighting in France in the First World War, and she never saw him again after he left home to fight in his best suit.
“All she received after he died was a parcel with his suit in, but it was also full of French clay.
“This story stayed with me, even though I was only a little girl when she talked about it.
“I had tried previously to find where he was buried but there were so many names the same as my grandad, that I gave up.
“Then I met Wayne on my way to London. We had spoken briefly about why I was going and he said he was an amateur historian.
“So I told him about this family mystery. He said he had an interest in the history of the conflict and I gave Wayne as much detail as possible.
“He said he would come back to me if he found anything, but I just assumed I wouldn’t hear anything. Then FORMER poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion today unveiled a new poem to mark the centenary of the armistice.
The verse was inspired by short family inscriptions on the gravestones of First World War troops which were limited to just 66 characters.
The epitaph honouring Pte Roy Douglas Harvey inspired the poignant ending of the poem, entitled Armistice.
It tells of a “well-thumbed Collins Gem dictionary” left behind by the schoolboy soldier, “from the pages of which rose and will continue rising / these a few days later I received an email from Wayne saying: ‘I think you’re going to be a bit surprised.’
“He was able to provide me with all the history about when he was shot during battle, he had the details of the army nurses who were looking after him and where he had been in hospital.
She added: “It was absolutely amazing. I can never thank him enough, on behalf of my family as well.”
Mr McDonald said: “I just took it upon myself to see what I could find out.
“I wasn’t expecting to find anything at all and never thought I would solve a family mystery.” words as time and space maintain their relation”.
Sir Andrew, 65, said: “Commissioned poems such as this are a mixture of planning and accident. In preparation I read various articles by contemporary philosophers about the nature of time and books about the creation of the cemeteries in northern France.
“When I began writing it, all kinds of other ideas began to emerge, mostly arising from the feelings I share with everyone else about the gigantic scale of suffering.” The poem for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) and released to coincide with National Poetry Day, also describes how the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918.
Victoria Wallace, director general of the CWGC, said the poem “brings a new perspective on the deeply personal inscriptions families chose”.
She added: “It seems almost impossible to articulate such loss and love in 66 characters – less than a tweet – to commemorate someone in perpetuity.”