Veteran at war cemetery for centenary commemoration

A Canterbury war veteran was invited to join in the 100th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Passchendaele at the Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium, where his own grandfather is remembered.

Retired University of Kent electronics technician Lawrence Mclaren, 84, made the poignant journey with his wife Gill, having gained a place through a ballot.

His grandfather, a coal miner also called Lawrence Mclaren, joined the 5th Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, which was formed in 1914 as part of Kitchener’s First New Army.

Even prior to his death on the Western Front, his life had been blighted by tragedy.

His father committed suicide in 1903 and then he was widowed in 1911 when his wife Mary died from septicaemia shortly after giving birth to their third child. Lawrence was 35 when he went to war, and was killed on September 21, 1917, in Flanders.

His body was never found and his name is recorded among the thousands who also have no grave on the memorial at Passchendaele.

His three orphaned children were brought up by relatives.

His grandson, Mr Mcclaren, who is now wheelchair-bound following a stroke, is himself a veteran, having joined the Black Watch of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and saw action in the Korean War and during the Mau Mau Revolt in Kenya.

He and Gill were given frontrow seats for the commemoration last week, which was attended by Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.

Mr Mcclaren said: “It was a very emotional occasion for everyone but I personally had an overwhelming feeling of how lucky I had been.”

Lawrence Mclaren with his grandfather’s ‘death penny’