THE Sunday before Good Friday is celebrated by the Christian church as Palm Sunday.
In South Wales it was, and to some extent still is, known as Flowering Sunday - a day on which families would remember and honour their relatives by placing flowers on their graves.
An article from the Argus in 1917 explained how children from Clytha and St Woolos Schools were looking after the graves of soldiers who had died locally and been buried in St Woolos Cemetery but who had no nearby relatives. Inspired by this, members of Gwent branch of the Western Front Association, marked Flowering Sunday this year by laying flowers at St Woolos on the graves of a number of men and women whose lives were taken during the First World War.
These included 30-year-old Lieutenant George Grattan, of the Royal Flying Corps.
George Grattan
Mr Grattan had worked at the Lyceum Theatre Newport and then Tonypandy Cinema before joining the RFC 1917.
On March 4 he was flying in formation with another plane on a training flight from his base at Upavon when the wings of the two planes clipped, sending both plummeting to the ground and killing both pilots. Although entitled to a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone, he is commemorated on a stone chosen by the family.
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George Grattan's grave at St Woolos, Newport
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone of Sergeant Albert Hood, South Wales Borderers, stands within the family plot.
He was the first local soldier to be buried at St Woolos during the Great War and a huge crowd lined the route of his funeral procession.
George Grattan's grave at St Woolos, Newport
He had taken part in a battle in the village of Gheluvelt in Belgium in October 1914, during which the South Wales Borderers had played a major role in preventing the Germans seizing the Channel ports.
Having been badly wounded he was brought back to Britain but died in hospital in London on January 7, 1915. Tragically, his older brother Charles was killed in Gallipoli in August 1915 and his younger brother Ernest at Loos in France in September. Both are commemorated on the family grave.
The grave was recently lovingly restored by workers from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Group of war graves with flowers laid by members of Gwent WFA
Among the female casualties from the war who lie at St Woolos is Florence Johnstone.
Florence Johnstone. Picture courtesy of her family
Her brother had been killed at Loos in 1915. The following year she left her home in Newport to work in a munitions factory in Coventry.
On February 5, 1918, a fuse she was handling exploded, killing her instantly.
As a civilian she was not entitled to war grave, but is recorded on the family headstone as having been killed on war service. The headstone had been laying flat on the ground with its inscription obscured but was recently lifted and restored with help from the Western Front Association through financial support from the National Lottery.
Florence Johnstone's grave at St Woolos, Newport
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