At the ceremony, the families sit on chairs amidst the long rows of small stone graves, marking the thousands of foreign soldiers who fought and died in the Korean War. They are accompanied by serving soldiers from their loved ones’ old regiments.
Major Angier’s daughter Tabby, now 77, and his grandson Guy, stand to read excerpts of letters he wrote from the frontline. In one of his final addresses, he tells his wife: “Lots of love to our dear children. Do tell them how much Daddy misses them and will come back as soon as he has finished his work”.
Tabby was three when her father left for the war, and her memories of him are fractured. “I can remember someone standing in a room and canvas bags pilling up, which must have been his equipment to go to Korea, but I can’t see his face,” she says.
At the time of her father’s death, people didn’t like to talk about wars, Tabby says. Instead, those in her small Gloucestershire village used to remark: “Oh, those poor children, they’ve lost their father.”
“I used to think that if he’s lost, they’re going to find him,” Tabby says.
But as the years passed and she learnt what had happened, Tabby was told her father’s body would never be found. The last recorded trace was that it had been left under an upturned boat on the battlefield.
Tabby has visited this cemetery twice before, in an attempt to get as close to her father as she thought possible, not knowing he was here all along. “I think it will take some time to sink in,” she says, from his newly adorned graveside.
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