Heroes of Passchendaele

Your report on the death of Major Arthur Watson at Passchendaele is made more poignant by the fact that, when he was fatally injured, he was about to leave the trenches for the very last time, as he had just received a permanent posting to Britain.

The future prime minister Anthony Eden witnessed the incident and would later record: “We were glad he was to have the rest he had so well earned, but he insisted that he must come up the line once more to say goodbye to us. This he did, leaving his horse a mile or so in the rear. Once mounted, he would never see the War again. Our farewells exchanged, he turned to go, when his eye fell on a package of letters, his company’s mail waiting to go down the line. ‘Can I take those with me for the last time?’ he asked. ‘Of course,’ the Colonel replied with a smile. Our guest stooped to pick up the small bundle and at that moment a shell burst beside him. He was gravely wounded. We managed to get him down the line, but he died at La Clytte and was buried there with some of his own riflemen.” Crispin d’apice, Gidleigh, Devon

To The Guardian

It is right that we should remember the carnage of Passchendaele and the sacrifice of those who were killed there. Here in Wales, we will also be honouring the memory of Ellis Humphrey Evans, better known by his bardic name of Hedd Wyn (Blessed Peace).

A shepherd on his parents’ farm, Yr Ysgwrn, near Trawsfynydd in North Wales, he was also a poet and won the bardic chair of the National Eisteddfod six weeks after he was killed on 31 July 1917, at the battle of Pilckem Ridge, near Ypres. He won the chair anonymously for Yr Arwr ( The Hero), one of his many war poems, but never knew that his life’s ambition had been realised. The chair was brought back to his farm draped in a black cloth, and can be seen today at Yr Ysgwrn, which has just reopened as a museum after restoration. A film based on his life, Hedd Wyn, was nominated for the best foreign film Oscar in 1994. Isobel Richards, Llangollen, Denbighshire