THE year 1914 must have been a terrible time for mothers, wives and sisters as they waved goodbye to loved ones, not knowing if they would see them again.

My father’s stepsister, Edith Hirons, was 19 in 1914 and sister to seven brothers, two stepbrothers and a stepsister.

Born in 1895, she was three years old when her father Arthur Hirons died of pneumonia.

In 1914, Edith was living at 56 North Street, Bicester. Her brother, Maurice Edward Hirons, had joined the Army in 1913 and was a regular soldier.

Maurice left England on August 13, 1914 with the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Edith received a postcard from Maurice dated August 22, with a very loving message.

In November that year, Maurice was in woods in Belgium near Zwarteleen. The Battalion diaries say “shelling light, one man killed, one man wounded”.

Maurice was 21 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres.

ALBERT PARKER
Woodfield Road
Bicester