Veteran researches war graves to tell town's stories

An Army veteran who has researched every war grave in his local cemetery is urging people to remember those behind the names this Remembrance Day.

Paul Bushnell, 66, has spent the last two years studying all 134 of the plots in Pontefract cemetery, West Yorkshire.

He has even helped families discover relatives buried there they never knew about, and hopes his work will encourage more people to take an interest in local history.

"If you go to a Remembrance parade you're looking at a cenotaph, it's just a name on a piece of stone. I wanted to bring that person to life," he said.

The graves are the resting places of service personnel, including those killed in both world wars, and of civilians who died as a result of enemy action. Bushell himself served in the Army for 14 years.

He clears overgrown areas and uncovers headstones that have been hidden for more than 100 years.

Two years ago, he decided to learn about the lives of the people whose graves he was tending.

"I can now look at the graves and I think, that's George, there's Peter," he said.

"Then, when I kneel down by the grave to tidy it, I'll have a chat with them.

During the Remembrance period, he laid a candle, a cross and a leaflet on every single grave with the story of that person's life.

"You can read about what he did before he joined the Army, what family he had, and what street he lived on," he said.

Some of the graves stand out to him for their poignancy.

Francis Woolgar was a Londoner who ran away from home to join the Irish Army in 1912, when he was around 13 years old. He was posted to India but then sent back to England after contracting malaria.

His ill health meant he was made the York & Lancaster Regiment's drummer boy, but in 1915, he developed pneumonia and died in the military hospital in Darrington. He was just 16 years old.

Bushnell managed to find the boy's surviving family, and got in touch.

"They knew absolutely nothing about it, they didn't even know he was in a grave in Pontefract," he explained.

Another is Willie, whose name is inscribed on a stone vase with no grave nearby.

"I've just called him the unknown soldier," Bushnell added.

Not all of the graves are for those who were killed in action. Pte Frederick Barber is buried near where he fell in France during World War One, but has a memorial in the cemetery alongside that of his sister Eleanor Beckett, who worked in the Barnbow munitions factory in Leeds and who died in an explosion there in 1916.

Bushnell said that looking after the graves was his way of showing respect, especially as many of them are overgrown and do not have relatives to care for them.

"Two or three generations down the line, you don't have many family who go to the graves," he added.

Out of the 134 he tends to, he said only five families still visit, making it important for him to continue his work.

Bushnell said he had received a lot of support from the local community for his project, which he said was "absolutely amazing".

In the two weeks leading up to Remembrance Sunday, he placed about 1,000 candles on the graves.

After a post on a community page, he said that so many candles had been donated that he had enough for next year too.

The stands for the information leaflets were also provided for free.

This year, more people have been seeing the research through social media, which Bushnell said had engaged even more people, but that he enjoyed seeing them visit the cemetery in person.

"One woman came up and gave me a hug," he added.

"She just kept saying thank you."

The veteran has just been given access to clear the overgrown areas of the cemetery to check for any more war graves that might have been hidden by foliage.

Along with more records becoming available, he said this would help him continue to research the lives of the people who are buried in the cemetery.

Bushnell added the two colleagues he had lost during his time in the Army was the reason he wanted people to remember fallen soldiers.

"Really, I do it for them," he confessed.

"To remember them all."

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