Death lies at the end of every life – but how young must it take us? I recently attended a funeral of a fellow godparent. He was half my age, and a keen rugby player and winter sportsman.

He was late for our god daughter’s christening. He sidled in and stood beside me. ‘Just made it,’ he whispered, with a wry smile.

Leaning forward, the vicar tactfully rotated his service sheet. It was upside down. He handed it back, his eyes twinkling, kindly. We gave our best vows.

Within a year, the situation was reversed. I arrived only just ahead of him. Only this time, it was his funeral. If the occasion hadn’t been such an achingly sad one, I know he’d have loved my timing, slipping in before his coffin.

Just 21, the church was full of his school and university friends, his family – and most heart- breaking of all, his younger siblings, who wept, inconsolable, unable to bear the echoing void of his absence.

This time the vicar – the young man’s godfather – did not even try to distract us with doctrine. He acknowledged what he saw. What we all felt. This death was too raw. Suffering was palpable; acceptance far off. He could not pluck comfort from the air – even if the church smelt sweet from lillies, and damp from centuries of worship and rainfall.

After the service, we stood in the wooded churchyard, blinking in the sunshine. The cortege made its way across the newly-mown grass to the freshly dug grave. As I followed, reluctant and apprehensive, I looked around me at the weeping figures, standing under the trees. They were all so young, so beautiful – utterly distraught. This experience was new to most of them. It had an intensity of feeling and a novelty of regret they were unused to – even surprised by.

Yet this scene, in 1914, must have been repeated up and down the country, both here and on the Continent. On an almost daily basis, the bells and church yards in cities, towns and the tiniest rural hamlets must have been rung, and wrung with grief. Sometimes only a handful of dwellings – but faith tested to the limit, again and again.

Death came daily to the young – and in spades. The only difference from now and 1914 was the privilege of mourners. Most of the young men holding one another close at the funeral I attended would have been absent – fighting for their lives.

Somewhere in the hell of exploding shells, rancid water, mud and the death rattle of machine guns , they may have told themselves it was for King and Country.

But for the lissom girls, tearful and clinging in disbelief, what comfort could there be? Could this generation carry on as their great grandparents had done? Let’s hope they never have to find out.

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