14891 RGS ONA Magazine 88_PRINT 20/05/2013 15:40 Page 6
ONA Essay Prizes 2012 For several years now the Association has set essay competitions for the school and we continue to be overwhelmed by the quality of the entries. Over the following pages, you’ll find the latest winning essays from Edwin Wood and Sam Mason-Jones. History Essay Prizewinner Edwin Wood, Year 11, with President of the ONA, David Westwood (95-02).
‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old’ Reflections on the Year 11 trip to the Battlefields in 2012
I
t is easy to look over the monumental figures of the Great War when scanning through textbooks: just under one million British casualties, two million children fatherless in Germany, a continuous array of figures. The scale of these numbers is too large for anybody to contemplate without witnessing, dotted across the French countryside, remnants of the war shown through the means of cemeteries or monuments. When seeing a Commonwealth war grave, the glistening white of the headstones creates a sense of tranquility for those who sacrificed so much to rest finally in peace on the land which they fell. Many of those graves have, etched into the stone:
‘A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR KNOWN UNTO GOD’ Questions instantly arise of, who was this person? Where was he from? What about his family? Sadly, many of these questions will never be answered, those graves will remain the silent reminder of the heroes who fell for their country. Private Edwin Laidlow and Private Septimus Wood, both my relatives, are commemorated on the Menin Gate in the town of Ypres. These two men, within days of each other died in 1914, unknown to each other, would never have thought that their distant relative would be staring up at their names. Both Edwin and Septimus are the people behind the graves with no name, what does this do to someone learning about the war? Being able to make the experience personal not only brought the facts and figures more imaginable but it also made me think about what their story was. Septimus, son of Septimus and Mary Anne Wood, of North Shields, who died aged 34 on 26th October 1914, had already fought in the Boer War. Looking through the War Diaries of his Border Regiment, a picture can be built of his final days. He had arrived on 5th October and had marched throughout Belgium for weeks before coming to Kruseik Hill. This was the platform for days of heavy German artillery, with small attacks
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