One hundred years ago today, many of the men who now lie buried here were returning, in haste, to their barracks, members of Sir John French's British Expeditionary Force, called up by telegram after Britain's declaration of war. On Monday evening, as the shadows lengthened over the wooded and undulating glades of St Symphorien cemetery, Britain honoured them: the first, the last, and all of her 750,000 soldiers who died in the Great War. But not only them: also their former foes – enemies in life, comrades in death – and that whole generation whose lives were blighted by a conflict that claimed, over four terrible years, some 17 million military and civilian lives. Full story >>
VOCABULARY
A century is a period of one hundred years. • Wrekin Golf Club was established over a century ago in 1905.