262607 Drv. Ernest Nettleship Sowler British Army 83rd Brigade Royal Field Artillery from:Stockton-on-Tees (d.25th Jul 1917) Ernest Sowler was my great-uncle Ernie, one of 12 children of John Sowler of Lucan Street. He was one of the younger sons and allegedly the favourite one. His older brother, my great-uncle Jack, was allegedly the black sheep of the family and was in the Indian Army before the First World War. He came back to fight in the war in France, and I was told that the two brothers met at Hellfire Corner in Ypres. Of course, the black sheep lived to a ripe old age and the favourite son was killed.
After the war, Ernest's parents had enough money to visit the grave in "Silly beck" churchyard, but they were told there was no point in going as his grave had been blown up. In the 1990s I looked in vain for his name on a memorial stone, so I wrote to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and they told me where he was buried. The following year I found his gravestone memorial in Railway Dugouts Burial Ground (Transport Farm).
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