Pte Herbert Cecil Aylott, 17850, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed in action during a heavy enemy shell bombardment on the Western Front in France on March 30th, 1918. He had been married for only a year and had a baby daughter.

In a letter of sympathy to Pte Aylott's wife Lilian, who was staying with her daughter at her family home in Dorset, Lieut H. F. P. Lubbock wrote: "Your husband was one of a party of men holding a post in our line, and he was killed by a shell during a heavy enemy bombardment. Death was quite instantaneous, and your husband cannot have suffered at all.

"He was buried in a grave near our line, and the spot was marked by a rough wooden cross which will be replaced by a better one as soon as possible." Ironically, Lieut Lubbock was himself killed just days later, on April 4th, 1918.

An Army chaplain additionally wrote that Pte Aylott was buried at a village called Moyenneville. In fact the location appears to have been lost in subsequent fighting, and Pte Aylott is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.

Herbert Aylott was born in Luton in 1890, second son of William Charles and Charlotte Aylott. His father, living at 30 Park Road West [now Strathmore Avenue], Luton, was a stoker at the Vauxhall Motor Works, and Herbert is commemorated on the Vauxhall war memorial.

Herbert had married Lilian May Ellery, from Winterborne St Martin in Dorset, at Marylebone Register Office in London on April 3rd, 1917. Baby daughter Mary Lilian was born later that year.