WHEN LAVINIA White received the official letter in September 1918 she will have known exactly what to expect.

For the Cross Roads mother-of-four had eight months earlier received a similar letter informing her of the death of son Herbert.

This time the notification concerned her other son, Arthur, who was serving in France as a lance corporal with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment.

Her boy, then in his early 20s, had signed up with the army in November 1914 soon after the First World War started.

It was another two years before Arthur, by then living in Bracken Bank, embarked for France and the killing fields of the Western Front.

Arthur’s service was uneventful until January 1918 when he was admitted at Bayeaux with tissue inflammation and septic sores on his left thigh.

He was back in hospital again in May with flu, spending almost a month convalescing before rejoining his battalion.

Then just a month later, on August 31 and at the age of 27, he was killed by a gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Arthur was buried in France and is remembered on both the war memorial at St John’s Church, Ingrow, and the recently-restored Cross Roads Primitive Methodist Church Sunday School roll of honour.