When remembrance becomes personal

A few miles from the French border lies the Belgian village of Quaregnon, today an unassuming hamlet amid endless fields and woodland but 100 years ago the focus of German and British attacks. Its name meant nothing to me until my brother and I received invitations from the town’s Mayor, Jean-Pierre Lepine, informing us that our maternal great uncle, Lance Corporal Solomon Brown, had lost his life nearby and had originally been buried in the local cemetery. Solomon was killed near Quaregnon 100 years ago during one of the first British offences of the Great War. The 1901 census lists him as a 14-year-old errand boy and ten years later, after going to sea, he had settled in the West Indies. He returned to fight for his country and fell on 13 September 1914, aged 27 and unmarried. H