About the Author

I have a keen interest in the Great War and in particular, the West Yorkshire Regiment during this period. My Grandfather, Frederick Louis Kilkenny served with the Leeds Rifles throughout the war, on the Western Front in France and Belgium and at home stations in Staffordshire and Ireland. I too wore the cap badge of the Leeds Rifles during my time as an Army Cadet. Lou Kilkenny’s brother, Andrew Kilkenny, or Syd as he was known to the family, was a Royal Engineers signaller and despatch rider during the Great War and he served in Egypt and Palestine. Andrew died at Alexandria in Egypt on 22 November 1918 and is buried in Cairo War Memorial Cemetery.
My interest in the Great War has led to me visiting the Western Front many times since the age of 19, and I have been proud to lay wreaths in memory of fallen Leeds Riflemen of the 49^th (West Riding) Division at their memorial above Essex Farm Cemetery on the road out of Ieper to Boesignhe in Belgian Flanders on numerous occasions. Although the division served elsewhere on the Western Front during the war, this area of Flanders has a special draw for me as it was here that my grandfather served until his health deteriorated to the point where he was sent back to England.

I was a Gunfitter with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I spent most of my time in the Army with Armoured and Field Workshops, although I had a lengthy attachment to the Life Guards of the Household Cavalry Regiment. I served at various locations in the UK and Germany with an operational tour of the Gulf in 1991 thrown in for good measure.

Since leaving the Army I have amongst other jobs built the world beating Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank. I am a member of various organisations, such as the Western Front Association, The Friends of Lochnagar, the Friends of St George’s Memorial Church Ypres, The Royal British Legion, and the Great War Forum. Outside of my military and historical interests, I am an avid cricket fan and one time player of no great skill, and I also enjoy cycling.

Remembrance means different things to different people. For some every day is Remembrance Day, for others it means the anniversary of a loved one's death or the anniversary of a battle a mate died in. Just as it means very different things, so it is observed in many different ways.

What is most important about remembrance is that those who are being remembered are being remembered. I believe that to remember someone properly, we must know something about them. The word 'cenotaph' can be translated as 'empty tomb', it is important not to let remembrance come to mean 'empty deed'. Naturally there is ritual in observing remembrance, whether it is on Armistice Day or another important date, but what must be guarded against is that we merely observe the ritual and forget what that ritual symbolises.

Since the end of the First World War only one year has passed without a British serviceman being killed on active service, 1968. The need for meaningful rememberance is a long way from being a distant memory, it is current and should be carried on.

Since leaving the Army I have attended Remembrance Parades each year, either on parade or just watching. I have noticed over the years that there is a break in the link between those men and women of the Great War and us who remember them today. The link is broken because we do not know the very people we are parading to remember.

Without knowledge of them we can never hope to properly remember them, and with that in mind I have set out to try to identify each of the men listed on the war memorials in the villages of Barwick in Elmet and Scholes. Knowing who they are and where they came from will help us to know them and enable us to remember them properly.