Dear Editor,

Here are a few more comments to add to the account of Colonel Herbert Bernard which you included in the Ross Gazette of October 26th.

At the age of 50, Colonel Bernard was one of the oldest local men to have died on the Somme in 1916. Most of the men on the Somme were only in their 20s.

During his life he had his fair share of personal sadness. At the age of 14, his father, who was a military surgeon in the Royal Navy, died as a result of an infection after a surgical operation in 1880.

He had married Ina Hogg in 1898 in Mandlay, but ten years later in 1908, on returning to his home in India from an expedition, he was devastated to find that his wife had died of enteric fever.

Early in 1914, after more than 20 years of service in the Indian Army, he returned home to Wilton Court, Ross-on-Wye, expecting to enjoy life as an English country gentleman.

However, at the age of 48, he took on another military role and became commander of the 10th Battalion the Royal Irish Rifles, the South Belfast Volunteers.

Easter 1916 saw the Uprising in Dublin where Nationalists took on the British Army and many lives were lost as a result of the fierce fighting. And yet, a few weeks later, Ulstermen and the Southern Irish were fighting side by side in the trenches of the Somme. Herbert and his colleagues could not understand why the cause of nationalism should have been so divisive.

Sadly Herbert was killed in action on the first day of the Somme, July 1st.

100 years on, a lot has happened with many improvements in relations between the North and South, much of which started with the Good Friday agreement of 1998. I wonder what Herbert would have thought about the present situation, especially as both the UK and Irish Governments have now to contend with the effects of the Brexit vote.

A final thought, I would like to know if any of our local men fought with Irish regiments during World War One.

G Amand, Ross-on-Wye