Thursday 27th August marked the 100th anniversary of the death in the First World War of my Great Grandfather, Wolverton, Buckinghamshire (Milton Keynes as it is now) resident, William Herbert Severne. His death made a huge different to my mother’s life. Following the death of her father, in 1918, her mother went to live my Great Grandmother in Windsor Street Wolverton. They all lived together until until my grandmother, Lillian Fincher, married again.

To mark this sad anniversary I was at William Herbert Severne’ graveside at the Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy. William Severne was a private in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was killed by a bomb at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée. The cemetery is east of Lille and a few miles from Béthune.

Prior to enlisting William was a sterotyper at McCorquodale's print works in Wolverton.

I notice that my great Grand-father's grave was adjacent to the graves of six other members of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire light infantry who had also been killed on 27th August 1915. F Dence, H A Dickens E A Horne, George Victor Gregory, J H Gutteridge, A E Isom All the graves are meticulously cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. “It was a very moving experience to be standing in this beautiful cemetery so close to where my Grandfather died,” Peter Clarke said. “Last week it rained all the way to the cemetery but cleared up just as we arrived. It is ironic that the landscape the Oxford & Bucks men were fighting over was one of small industrial villages in an agricultural area very similar to how North Bucks must have been at that time.

Based on information supplied by Peter Clarke.