Thread by @TJGodden

There are certain days in history that change everything. 28 June, 1916 was one of those. In the early hours of that day my Great, Great Uncle Thomas Wilson clambered from his trench in front of Hairpin Craters, not far from Hulluch, as part of a raid on the German lines. 1/ #ww1

The raid was almost immediately halted by heavy machine gun fire. In the half light, and in the confusion partly created by battle and partly by the yellowish clouds of gas drifting over no man’s land - an attempt to support the raid - Tom was hit. As the two sections... 2/ #ww1

...retreated back to their trench Tom was left behind. He was never knowingly found.

Many, many years later, 78 to be precise, I went on my first battlefield trip with my school (and my mum). This was, of course, before the days of internet searches... 3/ #ww1

...and we were asked to put forward the names of relatives to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to see if there were any relatives we could visit on our trip. Tom’s name and memorial came back to us. So, on one hot summer’s day in 1994 a group of school children... 4/ #ww1

...teachers and parents clambered from a coach and we made our way towards Tom’s name. I didn’t realise, as I stood on tip-toes, pointing to the etched letters above me, that something had changed in me.

Later that Summer we visited our Granny in Scotland... 5/ #ww1

...and, as ever, we traipsed around to visit all our many and various relatives, too. One of them was our Great Auntie Betty. Auntie Betty lived in my Great Grandparents’ house and had been alive when Tom was. I took the photos to show her. 6/ #ww1

She told me that we were the first family members to visit him, and how his fiancée, Elsie, had been out three times and never found him. She told me how she had sat on Tom’s knee and how his portrait had always hung in the house. 7/ #ww1

Then she pottered out of the siting room - as a young boy I hoped this was to restock the plate of tunnocks bars - when she came back in she had a small gold coloured box in her hands.

Handing the box to me, Auntie Betty said, ‘I think you should have these now’. 8/ #ww1

Inside were his unworn medals, ribbons still folded, in their cardboard boxes. I didn’t know it, but Tom’s story was now my own, and would shape nearly every part of the rest of my life. 9/ #ww1

99 years after Tom’s death I was due to give my first academic paper on my PhD research into the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at the University of Edinburgh. Tom had graduated from Edinburgh in 1913 and I was eager to see if he was recorded on any memorial there. 10/ #ww1

As it turned out, as I gave the paper his name was yards from me on the university memorial. I thought of Elsie and how she must have stood before the same memorial, having been able to find no other. 11/ #ww1

I’ve been back to visit Tom’s name many times since. On the 100th anniversary my Mum and I stood in front of Hairpin Craters and remembered Tom. I have taken my son to visit to begin to impart his story. 12/ #ww1

I remember him today, but, in all honesty, there is barely a day that goes by that I don’t have at least a flicker of a thought about him. His story, and the abrupt ending to his life, triggered a passion for the Great War that has shaped my life. 13/ #ww1

Remembering my Great, Great Uncle Tom Wilson MA, killed this day in 1916, but whose story lives on. 14/14 #ww1