PRIVATE JOHN STACEY
EAST LANCASHIRE REGIMENT
29TH JUNE 1918 AGE 25
BURIED: AVAL WOOD MILITARY CEMETERY, VIEUX-BERQUIN, FRANCE
It's possible that Mrs Hannah Stacey has slightly misquoted a song from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado for her husband's inscription. These are the words of the song:
Hearts do not break!
They sting and ache
For old love's sake,
But do not die,
Though with each breath
They long for death
As witnesseth
The living I!
The living I!
The song goes on to ask why someone can't just die when all hope is gone. The words could easily be appropriate to a grief-stricken wife, even if in the operetta they are sung by an unsympathetic woman, Katisha, who's discovered that the man she hoped to marry is going to marry someone else.
John and Hannah Stacey married on 8 August 1914. In the 1911 census both were working in the cotton industry, John as a doffer and Hannah as a twist doubler. From his medal card it doesn't appear that Stacey was a volunteer. He served with the 11th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, the Accrington Pals, and was killed in action at La Becque on 29 June 1918 following the battalion's capture of Beaulieu Farm on the eastern fringes of Nieppe Forest.