In November 2023, Mike Guilfoyle passed away… one of the many valuable people I met through my interest in the First World War.
It started with a headstone for Hugh Gordon Langton at Poelcapelle British Cemetery… a very special headstone with musical notes as inscription.
In 2014 and 2017 I was able to inspire and help organize the performance of a piece of music by the local Deerlijk brass band at this headstone, around this ‘series of notes’ on the headstone…
During my search for relatives of Hugh Gordon Langton, I came to know the friends committee around the ‘Brockley & Ladywell’ cemetery in London, of which Mike Guilfoyle was a leading member.
In this cemetery is the family grave of the parents and brother of Hugh Gordon Langton, who died young. A delegation from this committee came to the ceremony in Poelkapelle in 2017 and we kept in touch.
In 2018 I was in London again with the family, and we had a nice tour of the cemetery by members of the ‘Friends of Brockley & Ladywell’ and of course visited the Langton family gravestone. In the photo at the Langton grave, Mike is in the middle. Beautiful memories…
In an e-mail from early 2023, I told about my experiences in Gallipoli in September ’22 and Mike then told me about the grave of soldier Harold John Greenaway, whose name is also recorded on a family grave in Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery. This is not unusual at British family graves: these people knew very well that a visit to that distant grave was next to impossible. Then Mike and I discussed how nice it would be to visit that grave together at Gallipoli, but it was not to be…
This month I was at Gallipoli for a second time and with our group we visited the grave of Harold John Greenaway, and also paid tribute to Mike. We left a marker, which will hopefully remain there for a while.
The grave of Hugh Gordon Langton
Sent by Gill Bossuyt who was on the May 2024 tour