PRIVATE WALTER BERRY
YORK AND LANCASTER REGIMENT
29TH DECEMBER 1916 AGE 26
BURIED: GUARDS' CEMETERY LESBOEUFS, FRANCE
This inscription comes from the fourth verse of the hymn, 'For all the saints, who from their labours rest'. Written by the Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham Howe (1823-1897), the hymn has a particularly martial tone but the rousing words and the Ralph Vaughn Williams' tune to which it is usually sung gives it a memorably haunting quality.
The saints rest from their labours on earth where Christ was "their Captain in the well fought fight". May we be as soldiers - "faithful, true and bold", and "fight as the saints who nobly fought of old", and win as they did, "the victor's crown of gold".
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
It's a hymn of hope: the hope that when we have finished feebly struggling we shall live with Christ in Glory.
Walter Berry was an iron founder from Huddersfield in Yorkshire. He served with the 7th Battalion Yorks and Lancaster Regiment, a New Army battalion, that crossed to France in July 1915 and was engaged on the Western Front from then onwards.