BRAVE MEN ‘FORGOTTEN’

AS a former soldier Stephen McLeod clings to the hope that no fallen warrior will be forgotten, their names carved in stone to celebrate their courage.

But the 50-year-old veteran, who served for nine years with the Black Watch, spent his life wondering where the remains of his great uncle William McAleer lay.

William, a private in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, was a miner’s son from Leven, Fife, aged just 22 when he died at the Battle of Loos in 1915.

But it was not until 2010 that his body was unearthed at Vendin-le-Vieil, along with 19 comrades.

Research confirmed who he was, the only one of the heroes to be identified.

Stephen, from Cowdenbeath, travelled to France to witness his great uncle being laid to rest with military honours at the cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, near Lens, in 2014.

He said: “It was emotional, hearing the sound of the pipes coming through the mist. We don’t have a photograph of him. We don’t know what he looked like. But my mum felt proud.

“As a former soldier, like him, what greater thing than to go and show respect to somebody who died 100 years ago.

“His name had never been put on a local war memorial. It was as if he never existed.”

Stephen is baffled by any decision to change funding needed to locate missing soldiers like his great uncle.

He added: “Every year we have a remembrance service.

“It seems paradoxical, if they are saying these soldiers will never be forgotten – they are, in a sense, being forgotten if they are withdrawing funding.”