GUNNER WILLIAM MARK DRAISEY
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
5TH NOVEMBER 1918 AGE 27
BURIED: SWANSEA (CWMGELLY) CEMETERY, UK
Esther Jane Draisey died in 1984. Her husband, William Mark Draisey, died of wounds in 1918. The mother of his three sons - Donald, Trevor and William - Mrs Draisey had been a widow for 66 years. She will not have been the only wife in 1918 who faced a long future on her own.
Mark Draisey was a gunner with 85th Battery, 11th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery who arrived in France on 24 December 1915. I do not know when he was wounded but for Draisey to have been buried in Swansea, as he was, he must have died in the UK, in other words he must have been so badly wounded that he was hospitalised in Britain.
Obviously his wife did not choose this inscription since she was dead. However, the War Graves Commission's paper records show that the inscription she chose was:
Greater love hath no man
Than to lay down his life
For his friends
This has subsequently been crossed out and replaced with the new words - with a note beside it saying, "PI added by authority". The family had therefore received permission to alter the personal inscription for this a new headstone.
I'm going to make a sweeping statement here but, based on observation, it would appear that if a man were buried in the UK his inscription could be altered so as to refer to the subsequent death of a parent, wife or child but that this is not, or has not to date, been permitted in the cemeteries abroad.