DAVID Moncaster was very young when his grandfather Frank died. Yet he'll never forget a story his father Percy told him about his granddad.

It was something that happened during the second world war Blitz on York. Against a night sky torn by a deafening clamour, in which blinding flashes mingled with moonlight, Frank's silhouette could be made out as his solitary form wandered across nearby fields.

Frank simply couldn't stay in the house as the bombs fell, Percy told David. He was a survivor of Passchendaele. And on returning from active service in 1920 at the end of the First World War, he had suffered from a condition shared by many Great War veterans - shell shock.

Frank was the eldest of four brothers who went off to the war from their home in the small North Yorkshire village of Husthwaite. He had joined the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment as a regular in September 1916, and served at Passchendaele before being transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Other than that, and save for a handful of old photographs and discharge papers, his son Percy knew very little about Frank's wartime experiences.

Determined to find out more about his grandfather, David and his wife Lesley, who live in Driffield, started digging into his wartime past.

They visited the King's Own Royal Lancaster museum in Lancashire, and Kew Gardens Records Office in London, where archives containing First World War military records are held.

Whilst there, they found details of Frank’s regimental identification and a record of his discharge in 1920. They also found out that all four brothers returned home safely from the war, having had very different wartime experiences. Frank's twin brother John had served in the Army Service Corps, while his other brothers, Wilfred and Charles, served in the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery respectively.

"I find it amazing that he and his three brothers could return home to the small village of Husthwaite in North Yorkshire and lead such ordinary and normal lives," David says.

What David and Lesley could learn from Kew was limited, however, because the archives there had been badly damaged by fire in the Second World War. So in 2007 they decided to go further afield - following in Frank's footsteps by touring the battlefields and war memorials of Belgium on their motorbike.

David visited Passchendaele in Belgium and found battalion records showing Frank had served in the Ypres Salient during 1917 in an area surrounding Spree Farm. David visited the farm, taking in the peace of fields once wracked by conflict.

Frank later saw action at Passchendaele itself, where he was shot in the shoulder and exposed to mustard gas. He was sent back to England to recover.

Deemed unfit for frontline duties, he was transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving as a ward orderly at a Sheffield military hospital. Following his discharge, Frank was said to have led a “full and active life” in his village of Husthwaite.

David's father Percy, now in his 80s and living in Easingwold, still has Frank’s service medals; the Victory medal and the 1914-18 Great War Medal.

David holds on to a great deal too, mainly from his trip across France and Belgium. In visiting several WW1 cemeteries, he remembers a feeling of “peace and tranquillity” as he was taken from the resting places of the youngest and oldest soldiers who served in the Great War.

His wife, Lesley, remembers the incredible warmth and hospitality offered by the French and Belgian people, who on learning the reason for their trip, led them to sites of interest.

Many of the places they visited had haunting pasts. On a visit to Poperinge, which had been the main rest and casualty clearing centre for troops fighting at Passchendaele, the couple went to see a “condemned cell” where, David explains, “soldiers sentenced to be shot at dawn were held for their last night before execution.”

At the rear of the building, where most of the executions took place, there is now a garden. The bullet holes are still visible in the original Shooting Post, David says.

The most poignant reminder of war came in their visit to the Menin Gate however. The stone of the arch immortalises the 55,000 commonwealth soldiers who died at Passchendaele, the final resting place of many of whom is unknown to this day.

The Menin road itself is used as a daily thoroughfare: but every evening there is a moving ceremony, David says.“The police close the road to traffic and at 8oclock they stand and salute while the local Fire Brigade play The Last Post, and memorial wreaths are laid. This ceremony goes on whatever the weather and there are always large numbers of people watching, sometimes into the thousands.”

His tour of the battlefields gave David time to reflect on his grandfather's war.

"I always found my granddad to be a kind, mild-mannered person who was easy to get on with," he says. "I cannot imagine the horrors he saw and went through."

Frank always said he saw no need to go to remembrance services because he could remember the war without, David says.

At the time, the First World war was known as The Great war.

"But I remember him saying there was nothing great about the war," David says.

- Mary O'Connor


• Throughout the year we will be looking back at the events of the First World War. If you have a story you would like to share – about fathers or grandfathers, uncles or great uncles who fought in the war, or about the women who suffered at home while their menfolk were away, we would love to hear from you.

Phone Stephen Lewis on 01904 567263 or email stephen.lewis@thepress.co.uk