CORPORAL ALFRED WILLIAM WARD
ROYAL ENGINEEERS
23RD JULY 1916 AGE 28
BURIED: FAUBOURG D'AMIENS CEMETERY, ARRAS, FRANCE
Mrs Rose Ward's lovely description of the lost past comes from a poem by Frederick W Myers who is better known today as a Spiritualist. The poem, which doesn't appear to have a title, seems to describe a magical visit to the Lake District near Helvellyn, the memory of which is printed on the poet's mind:
Within, without, whate'er hath been,
In cosmic deeps the immortal scene
Is mirrored and shall last -
Live the long looks, the woodland ways.
That twilight of enchanted days -
The imperishable past.
Alfred Ward volunteered soon after the outbreak of war and joined the 61st Field Company Royal Engineers. His medal index card shows that he went with the regiment to France on 25 May 1915. They were based in Belgium - Hooge and Bellewaarde - until the summer of 1916 when they moved to the Somme. Ward was killed at Delville Wood where, among all the fighting, the sappers were laying on water supplies, creating tramway trenches, machine gun emplacements and shell-proof shelters.