LIEUTENANT FREDERIC DOBELL YOUNG
ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
6TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 30
BURIED: CANADA FARM CEMETERY, ELVERDINGE, BELGIUM
Other relations have quoted from this poem, In Memoriam A.H. by Maurice Baring, but unlike Frederic Young's father, few have chosen these bleak lines preferring the comfort of the last ones:
It is well with you
Among the chosen few,
Among the very brave, the very true.
Baring wrote the poem in memory of great friend Auberon Herbert who was shot down and killed on 3 November 1916. Baring cannot believe that he will never see him again, never talk to him again:
... The desolated space
Of life shall nevermore
Be what it was before.
No one shall take your place.
No other face
Can fill that empty frame.
There is no answer when we call your name.
We cannot hear your step upon the stair.
We turn to speak and find a vacant chair.
Something is broken which we cannot mend.
God has done more than take away a friend
In taking you; for all that we have left
Is irremediably bereft.
There is none like you.
'Irremediably bereft', not possible to restore, gone for ever.
Young who came from Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, originally served as a member of the Tynemouth Battery, a territorial battery, used to guard the coast in the early days of the war. However, once it became obvious that an invasion of Britain was unlikely, these trained batteries were sent overseas. It was 26 July 1917 before Young reached the war zone. He was killed eleven days later.