It's fair to say that most of my ancestors are very unremarkable. They didn't move very far and most of them dug coal or made stuff out of metal. Nobody ever talked about my great grandfather, Elijah, even though my mother would have known him.
Elijah did travel more than others, he spent all of the first world war in France. At the Battle of Le Cateau only nine men were left of his company. Elijah picked up a wounded man and carried him to safety, then returned, under fire to rescue a wounded sergeant of the Royal Fusiliers. Despite himself being wounded by shrapnel, he continued to do his duty, rescuing three other wounded men under fire at the Battle of the Marne, before being wounded again at La Bassee and invalided home.
