On 15/5/2015 in Flanders - see further details

On 15/5/2015 in Flanders, Ann, her brother Rodney Spokes and sister-in-law Pam had a rendez-vous on the Belgian frontier in Pluigstraat with Robin-Edward Poulton and other cousins. This was the centenary of Ronnie Poulton’s death, captain of the 1913 England XV Grand Slam winners, who was shot by a German sniper. When we reached his grave to plant primroses, we found that wreaths had already been laid for the Rugby Football Union and for Harlequins Rugby Football Club. While other family members met in Holywood Cemetery in Oxford, where Ronnie’s nephew Richard Symonds had replanted his original wooden cross from Flanders, we read identical texts standing opposite Ronnie’s grave in the Pluigstraat Memorial: which shows the names of 45,000 other WWI servicemen who have no graves. “We shall remember them.” Ronald William Poulton-Palmer died on 15th May 1915.