The ten Holmer soldiers killed in World War 2 have finally been remembered 74 years after the end of the war and their names carved on the parish war memorial.

The stone memorial was erected at the end of World War 1 at the junction of Holmer Road and Grandstand Road next to Widemarsh Common but was later moved to the far end of the Common to make way for road widening. Not the most prominent of locations.

TEN brave Hereford men whose names might have been lost to history are now commemorated on the war memorial at Holmer where they once lived.

Thanks to the persistence of retired naval man Chris Jones from Kington, the servicemen who died during the Second World War are now remembered on the memorial which until now honoured only those who fought in the First World War.

Seventy young Holmer men were killed while fighting during that war and their names are listed as a permanent reminder of their sacrifice. But there was no such tribute on the official war memorial for those 10 who lost their lives during the 1939-45 conflict. A keen local historian, Mr Jones, whose father George Richard Jones was killed while his regiment, the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry fought its way through Normandy after the D-Day landings, left no stone unturned in his quest to rectify the error.

Hereford City Council took up the cause providing £5,000 of the cost while Chris, who was born in Mortimer Road, and his family paid the remaining £800. It was a poignant moment when vicar of Holmer Church, the Rev Steven Lee re-dedicated the 100-year-old memorial at Widemarsh Common. Pupils from Holmer School read out the names of the 10 men who are now commemorated in their home parish.

Mr Jones was just a year old when his father, who was born at the Golden Lion pub on Grandstand Road, was killed. The fateful telegram was sent to the wrong house, so Mr Jones’s mother Muriel, who died last year, had to enlist the help of her MP in order to find out what had happened to her husband. During the 50th anniversary commemorations of D-Day n 1994, Mr Jones accompanied his mother on a pilgrimage to Normandy.

“She had never seen the grave, it was very emotional for her,” he said.

The 10 names added to the memorial are Ronald W Cumbes, William J Davies, William C Hodges, George R Jones, Richard Jones, Frank Prosser, Thomas W Read, Kenneth Shearer, Frederick Silvester, Ronald E Watkins.