Edie Damsell, at the graveside of her father Cecil W Lewis at Ribemont Cemetery in Northern France. Edie spent her whole lifetime trying to track her father down, and promised her mother on her deathbed she would find him Eventually with the help of Devon paper "The Sunday Independent" she traced him and in 1984 the British Legion took her to his graveside where they played the Last Post and presented her with his medals.
He father died when she was a babe in arms, during the last months of the war in 1918. Despite having 8 children to look after, my great-grandmother was denied a war-widows pension by the local worthies who decided such things, and the family had to struggle through the depression years in great poverty. We remember the fallen, but's let's not forget the brave women who had to struggle on for the rest of their lives, holding families together despite all the odds.

It's hard to make out the inscription from this photo, but the details are:


C W Lewis 
Gloucestershire Regiment
13th Battalion
20/03/1918

Commonwealth War Graves - Ribemont Extension

Judging by the date, Cecil died the night the Germans launched their 'Spring Offensive' on 21st of March 1918 - their last-ditch chance to settle the war before the Americans arrived.

German Spring Offensive 1918

He saw Edie once. When he returned from leave when she was just 18 months old. Same he never found out what a terrific woman his baby daughter would turn out to be.