WWI REMEMBERED Pensioner’s kind gesture to tidy up city grave of WWI soldier

WITH 2017 exactly 100 years on from the bloody battle of Passchendaele, which saw thousands of brave men die in service, it is a crucial year to remember those who died in the First World War.

But sadly, many graves across the UK and the world remain neglected due to reasons ranging from the soldiers having no living descendants to a lack of public funding.

Various articles published in newspapers across the world down the years have documented stories of memorials to fallen soldiers left to rot under thorns and brambles.

The issue has also been noted in the Welsh capital, and Cardiff pensioner George Green recently took it upon himself to do something about one grave he found in Ely.

Mr Green was so shocked to see the sorry state of a forgotten soldier’s grave at Western Cemetery, he arranged for the site to be cleared, and made fit for a war hero once more.

Mr Green, from Grangetown and a retired plasterer, noticed the grave in a mess earlier this year.

He has other family members buried at the site, and said: “Once I had found my sister-in-law’s grave at the cemetery, my wife and I decided to make it up because we had not seen it before and it was in a very bad way overgrown and all sorts.

“I called up my friend Phil Jones, who is a gardener, and he came down, dug it up and put the membrane and stones down. I had the cross made separately and put that in myself.”

After that job had been completed, the couple saw the grave directly next to it also in an “awful way”, with a justabout visible plaque reading: “In memory of Sergeant William Jones (soldier) Welsh Regiment. A soldier of the Great War 1884-1959.”

Mr Green, who is 71, added: “Looking at the grave where the soldier is we saw that was a terrible mess as well.

“I just looked at my wife and she nodded her head and said ‘yes, we must do it.’

“So we called Phil again and he came out, done the grave up for me – put top soil on, a new membrane and stones – and rang me to tell me it was ready.

“This week, my wife bought flowers for it just in case so I put them in but she hasn’t seen it at all yet.”

Mr Green then phoned around Cardiff cemeteries to see if he could get any more information about Sgt Jones, and soon found out from Maindy Barracks that he was the only William Jones in the cemetery, and that there was also a Beatrice Mary Jones laid to rest there, and Mr Green said he had reason to believe she was his wife.

He added: “There’s a hero in there somewhere.

“If he has come through the First World War, he has obviously gone through absolute hell.

“There were such gruesome battles like Mametz and Ypres, but he’s come out of it alive, because he lived until well after the war, until 1959.

“To have a little grave like that and in such a mess, I just thought, as we say in Grangetown, it just needed ‘tarting up a bit.’”

Speaking about his emotional reaction to seeing the grave in such a state, he said: “It made me sad not angry. I was tearful to say the least.

“That’s not a way for a soldier of the Great War to end up forgotten. To me, he’s a forgotten hero.”

On why it had been left in a neglected state, he said: “Sometimes families can’t do the upkeep for whatever reason, or he may have been childless.

“He may have grandchildren great-grandchildren.

“They might tell people their grandfather was in the war but not actually know where he was buried. Well, there he is there for them.”

Mr Green said he hoped if Sgt Jones maybe had family, they might be able to come and see their ancestor’s grave one day. “It’s over and it’s done,” he said. “We have done it not because we want glory, but through passion. We are talking about a hero here.

“There are lots of soldiers known to families and it’s up to them to sort them out.

“I’ve never done this type of thing before – I’ve cleared up graves of family members as some of them are buried here, but never a war hero.

“I’m not sure whether I’ve done right or wrong by doing what I’ve done to this grave, but I knew exactly what we would do as soon as I saw it.

“It did cost a few bob but worth every second.

“If the family of Sgt Jones see the story the Echo and they recognise him some way or another, they know exactly where he is now. All they need to do is go to the cemetery office and ask.” it was

Mr Green is not the only pensioner in recent years to give his time to tending to the grave of an unknown soldier.

In 2010, we reported on Phyllis and John Wells, who had been tidying the war graves at Barry cemetery for more than 60 years.

The couple had refused to let sickness stop them from visiting the graveyard, continuing to lay flowers and poppies even after Phyllis broke both of her wrists and ankles.

Her dedication to the 102 fallen soldiers was celebrated as she won an Echo Bouquet of the Week.

At the time, she told the Echo: “We go to all the graves, which takes quite a long time.

“The war graves, which are just in front of my father’s grave, had nothing on them.

“It’s a hard job, but John was in the war in Japan and his brother died and was buried in Normandy, which we go to every year, so they are important.”