Thanks Declan, I find myself agreeing with you.
May I share with all you threadmates some extracts from letters that after many readings still move me.
The A in my name is Acheson, The letter is to my grandmother from Lt Joseph Acheson, her cousin. He was from Derrygonnelly, Fermanagh. He joined in 1914 and must have been born lucky to survive so long.
27 10 1917
...Yes it was sad of poor Tom Evans to be killed, he is one of the many who have paid the great price and nobly laid down his life in defence of the homeland. Every time we see a poor fellow getting covered over with earth in his last resting place very often not pleasant surroundings I think of the old Kaiser and his cursed country and the many crimes and lives theyll have to answer for. You know Sallie the burials are mostly like what we read about in the school books about the Burial of Sir John Moore not a drum was heard nor a funeral note as his corpse in the shell hole we buried. A very fine funeral for a man to get here is to be carried a few miles behind the line and be tied up in an oil sheet or blanket and buried in a proper graveyard and a little wooden cross put over, theryre mostly buried at night anyhow and any place and nothing in half the cases ever marks the spot. The last thing ma said to Tom and I and also his poor wife was to look after one another........
I dont worry about myself so much as Eva as I dont know or at least I'm afraid she wouldnt survive if anything happened to me. I dont like to think of her awful position as it doesnt do me any good. I trust in God and try to make life as happy as possible under all circumstances looking forward to better times when we can all shake hands and say it is finished.

Joseph died of wounds in France, June 1918.

Keith Acheson.