Mrs Stewart, one of our Art teachers, visited 2B2's English class to tell them the story of her great grandfather, Earnest Stanley Wall who fought in the First World War. This term, the class has been reading Michael Morpurgo's war novel “Private Peaceful” so it was particularly interesting to hear a true life account of a young British soldier.

Earnest was only sixteen and a half years old when he defied his mother and went off to enlist in The Black Watch. He lied and said he was eighteen so that he could join his three brothers who were already fighting on the Western Front.

He fought at the Somme and Ypres but, at the age of eighteen, during the second Battle of the Somme , he was dreadfully injured. A canon exploded close by him and shattered the bones in his legs. During the attack he was also hit by a grenade and machine gun fire. Miraculously he survived all of this and a bayonet attack! Unable to move, and horribly injured, he was picked up in No- man's Land by a German ambulance team. From the German medical tents he was taken to hospitals in Baderborn and Sounelager – and there he stayed for two and a half years!

Finally he came home to an ex- serviceman's hospital in Aberdeen – where he remained until 1923 when he married Lucy Dalrymple – his nurse ……and Mrs Stewart's great granny!

Mrs Stewart said, “I remember him well. He had sustained dreadful injuries and for the rest of his life he had to wear heavy metal callipers. Yet he was always positive. He never spoke out against the war. He considered he had been privileged to have been able to fight for his country. Many many British soldiers were treated in German hospitals. He was grateful for the good treatment he received at the hands of the enemy.”

This story has a happy ending - Earnest and his three brothers all survived the war.