LIKE many young servicemen, Percy Brogden spent less than a year in the forces before being killed in the First World War.

But we know a little about his wartime service and earlier life, thanks to a diary and letters which have survived.

His call-up papers arrived at his home in Thames Street, Oxford, on June 10, 1917, the day after his 18th birthday.

On June 21, he went for a medical and “passed A1”.

On July 9, he wrote: “Join the Army. Up to Cowley Barracks.”

He was attached to the 2/8th Worcester Regiment and the diary records route marches and training, some at a base near Swindon.

By 1918, he was in the trenches in France and in a message to his family on May 26, he wrote: “You get a lot of clean washing when you come out of the trenches for a few days rest. They think it will be all over this summer.

“I remember last Whit Monday I went bluebelling with Aunt Annie (his mother’s sister). I’ll be there next year.”

But two days later, he was wounded. His family received a telegram which read: “Dangerously wounded – gunshot wound – chest.”

Postcards and letters from his padre and matron kept the family informed of his progress.

He appeared to be improving and wrote a letter home in a spidery hand on June 10, but six days later, a week after his 19th birthday, he died.

Oxford Mail:

  • WELL-KEPT: Les Baraques military cemetery at Sangatte, where Percy Brogden is buried

He was buried at Les Baraques military cemetery at Sangatte, near Calais.

His headstone today stands in a meticulously well-kept grassy resting place with flower beds, a memorial and roll of honour.

Percy’s blood-stained and damaged 1917 diary was among the belongings returned to his parents, Joseph and Lottie Brogden.

Later, an article was written about Percy, compiled from the diary and letters which his mother had kept in a draw-string bag.

A copy of it was found by Memory Lane reader John Masters, of Hamble Drive, Abingdon, as he trawled through records at A R Mowbray, the Oxford publishers.

He and Percy had worked for the firm in different eras.

Young Percy Brogden, who was born on June 9, 1899, had started at Mowbrays at its New Inn Yard works, off St Aldate’s, after he left school.

His father, Joseph, had served in the Oxford City Police force for 20 years, but was forced to retire through ill-health in 1913.

He became a porter at Somerville College and during the war, worked as a medical orderly with the Royal Army Medical Corps which was using the Oxford University Examinations School in High Street as a hospital.

However, money was tight and his wife was forced to take in washing to make ends meet.

In his diary, Percy recorded the daily weather, visits to the Queen Street and George Street cinemas in Oxford, visits to his grandparents (in Jericho), work on the family allotment, bathing (possibly in the Thames at Long Bridges) and occasional walks ‘to town’.

Among the letters was intriguing correspondence with a girl called Nell Addison.

At one point, she “chucks him over”, but she apologises and later, in a letter to his mother, Nell, then serving with the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, writes: “I’ve had another letter from Percy – I always feel better, it makes you feel as if you are not quite forgotten.”

She also reveals that she hadn’t “heard anything more of my ring”.

Was this another of the many romances cruelly ended by the war?

  • According to the Commonweath War Graves Commission, 47 Brogdens from the UK died in the First World War, several from the same Oxfordshire roots as Percy. Five sons of John and Susan Brogden, of Buckland, served in the war and three did not return.