There are now so few people left who took part in the 1914-18 War that reminiscences  and knowledge is fading fast or being lost altogether.   Apart from official records which tend to be cold and dispassionate, the real nuggets - gems - of personal experiences, names of fallen comrades are those handed down from former soldiers to children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren.

So what lies in your family history?   Are there letters or photographs tucked away in a "safe place" long since forgotten.  

Our family comes from the west coast but have long since spread out across the country and consequently cousins tend to have only a Christmas card contact.   But fairly recently, when the last of my Father's family died, his daughter found a pencil-written diary on two pieces of paper originally written by the eldest son of the family. Uncle John (of the Seaforth Highlanders) had started a diary in June 1916 when he landed in France. 

He very briefly describes the battalion movements and the mud,   His diary started on 20th June and ended when he was killed on the Somme in October that same year.   Sometime during 2001 a cousin and her husband went on an investigatory trip and on one of their forays they were at the Theipval Monument.  

After years of the family being told " no record - no known grave" they found not only our uncle's name but almost immediately above it was another family name which no-one had known about.-  also in the Seaforth Highlanders.   So now I put up two crosses in the Garden of Remembrance on Armistice Day.

Does the above jog a memory?   Bring back a name, or a piece of family history heard as a child and tucked away in the recesses of memory.   Do you think it is now almost a duty on the generation born between the two World Wars to pass on what we know, what we remember, so that our children and grandchildren can not only pass the information down the line - but give those to come a sense of pride in their family history

Think hard!   Dig deep!   See what you can remember and get it down in black and white - or the suggestion has been made that you all use your newly acquired computer skills or even digitise your knowledge.