Readers share their memories of loved ones who fought… and died

Farmer’s lad lost for ever amid horror of Flanders’ battlefields

AS the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War nears, we will be telling the stories of the ordinary people who made an extraordinary sacrifice for our country.

Please share your relative’s story. Email features@mirror.co.uk or write to WW1 Memories, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AP. Please include a phone number. THE body of Rifleman Eddie Lennox was, like so many, never found. The son of a farmer from Kilrea, Northern Ireland, he joined up in April 1916 with the North Irish Horse aged just 19. He embarked to France in early 1917 as an infantryman to bolster the Royal Irish Rifles in the 36th (Ulster) Division, virtually obliterated on the first day of the Somme on July 1, 1916.

RFLM Lennox and the division deployed around Ypres, Belgium, finding themselves in action at Langemarck Capture of Westhoek on August 10. He was 20.

His name is on the Menin Gate at Ypres, one of 54,395 there with no known grave.

Philip Holmes, son of Rifleman Lennox’s first cousin, has visited the spot where it is believed he died.

The 58-year-old veteran from Kingsbridge, Devon says: “It’s a fairly exposed place even to this day, and haunting, with low headstones in juxtaposition with tall trees. “But Eddie must have found this a very alien world from the green fields around Kilrea.

“When I visited, I had no idea that Eddie’s name was one of the 54,000 inscribed there.

“I guess the First World War wasn’t talked about much and he was so soon forgotten, even within our own family.

“I am so pleased that he’s being remembered today.”