LIEUTENANT HORACE ALEXANDER COLLINS
SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT
18TH SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 22
BURIED: KEMMEL CHATEAU MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
'Dad', Edward Alexander Collins, chose this inscription for his son. What can he have meant by it? I have to admit that I have no idea and can't even speculate. But I've included it in this epitaph collection as an example of one that presents an impenetrable enigma ... and was presumably meant to.
Horace Collins was the eldest of his parents' three sons. Educated at Felsted School in Essex, he was articled to his father, a solicitor in Edgware Road, London. He joined up on 8 September 1914, scarcely a month after the outbreak of war. He was 19. He served initially as a private in the Artists' Rifles before being gazetted Second Lieutenant in the South Staffordshire Regiment on 9 November 1914. Promoted lieutenant in March 1917, he was appointed Divisional Signalling Officer and attached to the 246th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. He was killed in action at Kemmel Hill on 9 September 1917.
"Yes dad", in inverted commas - what can it mean?