A WW1 Soldier Returns Home

A heart-warming WW1 photograph of a soldier returning home.

A British soldier of the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), being greeted on the door step by his mother as he arrives home on leave, laden with kit.

When I look at this photograph, I think of all the mothers who lost their sons.  Particularly, the one hundred women guests of honour at the Unknown Warrior burial in London on the 11th of November 1920, who had each lost their husband and all their sons in WW1.

Horace Nicholls, the photographer who took the photograph of mother and son on this post, lost his eldest son on the Western Front.

Many families lost loved ones in WW1.  On my mother’s side, my Great Grandmother lost her brother, Private Josiah Willey, who was killed in action at the Battle of Fromelles on the 19th of July 1916, and has no known grave.  He left behind a wife and four children.

My Grandmother, on my father’s side, lost a brother, Private Norman Cecil Newey, who was killed in action on the 3rd of July 1918.  His place of burial is Le Grand Hasard Military Cemetery in France.  He was only 19 years old when he embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A17 Port Lincoln, on the 20th of October 1916. 

His older brother, Private Cedric Charles Newey, landed on Gallipoli on ANZAC Day (25th of April 1915), and after that onto the Western Front.  Even though he sustained gas burns in June 1918, he survived to return home to Australia.

Lest We Forget.

Information and photograph came from Imperial War Museums. Image file number IWM Q 30402.

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