Commemoration of WW1

On Monday 4th. August we attended a Service of Commemoration of the 100th. anniversary of the first World War. It was a very moving service held at the Gateshead Metrocentre.
The following poem was read early on in the service.

The Cemetery

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unknown and unmarked shrine,
A broken plot, a soldiers cemetery.

There lie the flowers of youth, the men who scorned
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

by John William Streets, better known as Will Streets, born in Whitwell, Derbyshire.  Although academically and artistically gifted he began work as a coal-miner at the age of 14.  In August 1914 he joined the Sheffield City Battalion  (Sheffield Pals), he served in Egypt from late 1915 to early 1916.  The Battalion was transferred to the Western Front, by this time Will was a sergeant.  He was wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st.July 1916, and subsequently went missing, his body was recovered exactly ten months later on the 1st. May 1917 and is now buried at Euston Road Cemetery, Colincamps.
(ref. special memorial A.6 )