LANCE CORPORAL ALFRED WILLIAM JACK PLOWRIGHT
MIDDLESEX REGIMENT
25TH SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 29
BURIED: ROCQUIGNY-EQUANCOURT ROAD BRITISH CEMETERY, MANANCOURT, FRANCE
It won't surprise you to learn that it was Lance Corporal Plowright's mother who chose his inscription. This must be her memory of her last good-bye - 'he looked ahead and smiled'. There is something very moving about this kind of personal memory. Look at these two other last goodbyes:
I could not speak
That last good-bye
But kissed him o'er and o'er
Private William Carr Epitaph 793
With aching hearts
We shook his hand
It was our last good-bye
Private John McKay Epitaph 880
Alfred Plowright had been a railway clerk before the war, as was his father. Born in Enfield, in 1911 he was living with his parents in Wood Green. He enlisted in May 1915 and embarked for France with the 20th Battalion Middlesex Regiment on 17 November 1915. He "died of wounds received in an enemy air raid" according to the extra information his mother added to the War Graves Commission record.