Great loss to bear

“This time of year always reminds me of my grandfather George McLaren, my mother’s father who was killed on November 13 1916 in the last few days of the Battle of the Somme,” emails Ken Kennedy.

“He was a missing figure in my life and this was echoed throughout the country where many youngsters grew up without one or both grandfathers. At a young age I could not understand my grandmother’s dislike of Remembrance Sunday but later realised that November 11 was just too close to the death of her husband for her to feel she could rejoice on the date which marked the end of the war.

“I remember the several polished shell cases in the fireplace which held the pokers and which were decorated with engraved Black Watch regimental badges, no doubt done by George or his fellow soldiers in quiet times in the trenches and which found their way home.

“I also remember the story which my grandmother told occasionally about the time she was informed of George’s death. She told of a knock on the door and two policemen who gave her the news. Like so many, she suffered great shock and grief. She collapsed and when the doctor arrived he told her that her heart had ‘moved half an inch’. As a young boy this fascinated me as I could not understand how that could happen.

“My grandfather’s war medals sat in a small brown box in a drawer and I would have loved to play with them but only occasionally was I allowed to look at them briefly before they were returned to the drawer.

“The other day I was browsing through family photographs and came across one which, with the 100th anniversary of the ending of the Great War, made me look at it with more understanding.

“It is a class photograph taken outside Liff Road School (see above). My mother is in the second row from the front and second from the right looking a bit surprised by the camera. I suspect the photograph dates from 1915 or 1916 and I realised that at the time it was taken, many of these children, including my mother, would have lost their fathers.

“It’s difficult to imagine the effect that these losses would have on each child and on the community. My grandmother was left to bring up three children, my mother as eldest, her sister and brother who was only born in January 1916 after his father had left Dundee for the Western Front.”

Children of Liff Primary School in a photograph taken in 1915/16. See more on left.