PRIVATE ROBERT LONGDEN
LEICESTERSHIRE REGIMENT
11TH OCTOBER 1918 AGE 21
BURIED: BUSIGNY COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, FRANCE
Robert Longden's mother composed an unusually emphatic inscription for her son. Whereas other families might say, 'Gone but not forgotten', or, 'Too dearly loved to be forgotten', Mrs Longden - Longden's father died early in 1914 - his sister, Jessie, and his two half-sisters, Minnie and Nellie, state firmly their intention to think of Robert daily until the day they die.
I sometimes think that individuals get lost in the general lament for 'the dead' of the First World War. An inscription like this reminds us of the burden of grief so many families carried with them for the rest of their lives. Mrs Longden, although by the time she chose the inscription she had remarried and was Mrs Peatfield, died in 1962.
Longden was not entitled to the 1914-15 Star; from his age I would imagine that he went abroad no earlier than July 1916, which is when he became 19. He was killed on 11 October 1918 in an attack on the village of Regncourt. The war diary reports how early in the attack two serjeants and ten men were killed by enfilade fire whilst sheltering in a ditch. It's possible that one of these men was Longden. In March 1920, Longen's body, along with that of one serjeant, one lance corporal and seven other men were recovered from an isolated burial site and reburied in Busigny Communal Cemetery Extension.