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War is a terrible, terrible thing anywhere in the world. I hope your son can avoid being involved in it if it’s at all possible. This last week or so, I’ve been researching that member of the Aisbitt family of Toll Cottage who married into my father’s family in 1900. He was posted to France 9th September 1915 and was presumed dead 17 days later, having presumably lost his life in the Battle of Loos 26 September 1915. As he was recorded as ’presumed dead’ rather than ’killed in action’ it seems probable that there weren’t enough pieces of him left to be able to make a definite identification. He left a wife and 3 children who together received the princely sum of £2. 2s and 6d. So much was a 37 year old man’s life worth in 1915. The details of the Battle of Loos, if you are not familiar with them already, make horrendous reading, not only for casualty details but also for the ineptitude of some Generals. 26 September, when Edward Aisbitt died, the British Army at Loos had no less than 8 000 casualties among their 10 000 men! Many of those were caused by poison gas, used by the British army, drifting back into their own lines and causing more casualties among the British than among the Germans. Why? because of one General who refused to listen to advice about wind direction. Well done Bedlington for the efforts you are making to help the people of Ukraine. It makes me very proud of my roots.

I find it strange how life is my son was brought up in Hertfordshire he’s in the British army waiting for he’s order probably Poland he serves in the royal tank regiment & one of he’s best friends whose in the same regiment is from Bedlngton