Letter: The Littleton War Memorial Is Important For My Family

Published on: 22 Nov, 2018
Updated on: 22 Nov, 2018

Laurence McCraith with his mother Rachel at the dedication service.

From Laurence McCraith (aged 8 years)

On Tuesday, November 6th (2018) the Littleton war memorial was dedicated.

It had 11 names on it. One of them was my ancestor Alfred White.

I am very pleased he is on this memorial. I am proud of him because he fought bravely for our beautiful country. He died like so many others and that makes me feel sad. But when I went to Littleton it didn’t make me feel sad but pleased that he could be remembered alongside ten other courageous men.

It was a privilege to meet so many people at the dedication service. I was surprised when I was asked to lay the remembrance cross for Alfred White but when I laid the cross I did it, not just in memory of him, but thinking of everyone, including German soldiers, who had died in the war.

Mummy read a poem called The Western Front by Alfred Noyes. My grandad read it at a special service at Littleton in 2016. He sadly passed away in February and I was thinking of him and my great nanny who is 93 and is Alfred White’s niece. They would both have loved to have been there on this special day and I look forward to telling my great nanny all about it.

At the end of the service we showed pictures of Alfred White and family to some of those who came to the service. I could not believe we were in the same building that he had gone to school in the 1890s.

This was an important day for me and my family and I am so thankful to all the people that made this happen and for the hospitality of the village and More-Molyneux family.

I hope that I will be able to show others this memorial as I grow up to keep the memory alive of those who died, from Littleton and every village, in every country that fought in these terrible wars.

Responses to Letter: The Littleton War Memorial Is Important For My Family

Ben Paton Reply

November 22, 2018 at 7:55 pm

RF Delderfield was born in 1912. He served for five years in the RAF. He was a successful journalist, playwright and novelist.

He wrote in his autobiographical essay An Auster Odyssey (the Auster was a type of aeroplane):
“If I learned anything during that seven-thousand-mile journey across Europe it was that this particular war was a just war on the part of all who opposed German fascism. Wars may be unfashionable, and undoubtedly most of them in the past have been unnecessary, but World War II is a clear example of the necessity to fight to the last gasp under a given set of circumstances. The victory that came a few weeks after my return to Britain does not seem to have brought us much beyond a succession of almost insoluble economic and social problems, but this is beside the point. Defeat would have reduced us to a state of wretchedness beyond realm of thought.”