The above postcard was written from my great grandfather while he was on service in Germany in 1919 as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. He was writing to my gran (second from the right) when she was 6 - she died just last year, aged 93. He addressed it to "My Bonnie wee auburn haired lassie, Maggie" and says:

"Well my Hen, can you read yet? Have you learned anymore songs? If so I'll be needing you to let me hear them all when Daddy gets home. You'll be having rare fun now. No lessons and play all day. Ta ta xxx Daddy."

Peter McDougall Cameron returned to civilian life later that year to work as a chauffeur in Dundee. Sadly he died only four years later when a routine operation on his appendix went wrong. His last son, David, was born a few months later.

You can see a page dedicated on my website here, with Commonwealth War Graves Commission links for each name. Not all of these men have been fully researched yet, but one of the latest I have learned about is the last on that alphabetical list, Andrew Phillip Stewart, who was the second eldest son of my gg-aunt Betsy. He is also the only relative I know of (so far) who won a gallantry award, the Military Cross.

Andrew was born in Glasgow in June 1896 to Samuel Stewart (a gymnastics instructor and teacher) and Betsy Phillip (who had worked in her father's home-run market garden store before getting married). When the war came he was initially a Private in the 5th Scottish Rifles, but later became a Lieutenant in the 9th King's Own Scottish Borderers. As far as his MC goes, I have found the citation in a supplement to the London Gazette from July 1918, but as yet have no real context (or date) for the action...

"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in a difficult rearguard action, when his tactical handling of men caused the enemy to suffer heavy casualties and enabled his own men to withdraw with a minimum of loss. He was wounded just as the last remnant of his command had reached safety."

The next thing I know about Andrew is that he died on 2 June 1918 after accidentally drowning while in County Mayo. I can only speculate that his wound took him back to the United Kingdom, and then to Ireland, either for recovery or perhaps some reserve duty, and there he had his tragic accident. He is buried in the Western Necropolis of Glasgow Cemetery. There is a great photograph of Andrew that I came across in my late great-auntie Jean's photo album, which I saw for the first time a few months ago, showing him wearing one of the emergency issue winter goat-skin coats (also known as 'woolly bears') that were first issued in the winter of 1914-15. His cap badge shows this was taken when he was with the Scottish Rifles.

Through researching Andrew, I discovered that his elder brother, Henry (known as Harry) also died in the war, being killed at Gallipoli, while serving with the 5th Battalion Highland Light Infantry, on 14 July 1915.

This is my fifth annual Remembrance Sunday post, you can see the previous years' entries from 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.

From a 1990 letterhead

I like my name. It's got five letters to match my surname, and has no descenders or ascenders, giving it a pleasing stamp. Up until I got on the internet, I thought it was pretty much unique, though someone told me early on that Elvis Presley's twin brother was called Garen (actually his second name and not the same spelling, Jesse Garon Presely, he was still-born).

It's one of those names people never believe the first time they hear it, so I've always got the script ready to say "it's like Darren but with a G instead of a D", though sometimes I won't bother, and will endure being called Darren, Gary, Gareth or Geraint and on one amusing occasion, Garden. One chap I worked with for a few months even took to calling me Dave because my name just did not compute in his world. The most common mis-spelling is to give it two rs, and it is still sometimes mis-spelt by friends and even family. If I say my own name, Garen Ewing, too quickly, people tend to think my name is that of automobile-songster and pop-pilot, Gary Numan.

When I did get on to the internet (in 1997) I found there were other Garens out there and I experienced something of the feeling that all Johns, Daves and Mikes must constantly have... that my name is shared. Most Garens the world over have an Armenian surname, and this does seem to be where its roots lie, although a number of more recent baby-name websites declare it as French, and that it comes from the word 'guard' (erm, which is garde). A friend of mine who recently had a baby, owned a mammoth book of 40,000 baby names, including Garen, of which it said it was English. I can't help but wonder if they got that from typing the name into Google and coming up with my website and looking at where I lived!

I do know of another Garen native to the British Isles. In the late 1990s I did some illustration work assisting comic artist Tony O'Donnell, and when he had a son around that time, he and his wife decided they liked the name Garen, so it became his too. He's not named "after me", as such (I've only actually met Tony once in person), but I feel honoured, all the same, that my name was the origin.

The signature I use on my artwork - it hasn't changed much in 20 years...

One popular use of the name Garen appears to be for fantasy characters in online fiction, as it lends itself to that random interlocking of syllable parts that I know so well from my role-playing game days when I did much the same thing (ah, Dorin Sharpesword, where are you now?) In fact, at the time of writing, the number one Google return is for Garen Muln, a human male Jedi master who "lived during the final decades of the Galactic Republic". Number two is for Garen Boyajian, a Canadian actor (with an Armenian surname) whose "dedication, drive and defiant pursuit of superstardom" I immediately support due to our invisible unusual-name bond. As for me, I come in at number four, just after Tarot mistress, Nancy Garen (but I'm not counting the surname). I've seen one female Garen - Garen Thomas, an African-American children's editor and author.

Despite being one of those names you'll never find on a name-key-ring display in a tacky gift shop (often the first port of call on school outings), there are a couple of places called Garen. It's the name of a ghost-town to be found on Highway 61 south of Forest Lake, Minnesota, founded in the 1890s. What I find intriguing about this place is that it was born of flame (a cattle-train stop built to placate the local farmers who were the victims of fires started by sparks from passing trains) and it pretty much died by flame (when the old school building burnt down in the 1930s, leaving only a roadside tavern into the 1940s). Garen is also a small town just outside Lindern, Germany ('garen' means 'cook' in German, apparently).

So there you go... though the name has a Western Armenian heritage, in my case my mum just made it up in 1969. Well... you do keep asking! You can read another blog post about names right here.

My parents and grandparents at my naming ceremony.

They seemed particularly impressed with my links page, which I have always felt needs to be much more comprehensive, actually. (You know, it always surprises me when comics creators don't link to other creators from their blogs and comic sites - Google likes you if you're well-connected! - not that that's the only reason for linking to friends and acquaintances).

Back to the magazine - I must agree with their Star Site - The Long Long Trail, especially its invaluable Great War Forum - probably the best World War I resource on the net. Another star site would have been regiments.org, which has sadly gone off-line recently, probably for good.

When the First World War broke out, David (a book keeper at Keillers) and John enlisted together at Dundee on 5th November 1914, David being given the number 1692, and John 1695, and both going in to the Royal Army Medical Corps. While I know David was placed with the 3rd Highland Field Ambulance, I am less certain about John as less paperwork has survived, and while it is possible they went in to the same unit, they have different embarkation dates: David on 4 May 1915, and John 1 May 1915.

The 3rd Highland Field Ambulance, as part of the 51st Division, saw action at Festubert in June 1915, the Somme in July 1916, and Beaumont Hamel in November 1916. It was also at Ypres late in 1917, but in February of that year David had been discharged as medically unfit due to dysentery. John, who had also served in France, was discharged in March 1919, suffering a 'broken denture'.

At the moment, I know little about the brothers' lives after the war. Neither of them ever married, and in fact I believe they lived together sharing a flat in Dundee for the rest of their lives - John dying around 1957 (no date for David as yet). Almost exactly a year ago I happened to get in touch with a medal collector who had one each of David and John's WWI medals. He generously offered to give me first refusal should he ever wish to sell them, which he very recently decided to do, and they arrived just a few days ago... a timely acquisition for Remembrance Day.

I did have another great-great uncle who served in the 3rd Highland Field Ambulance, not related to the Ewings, but also from Dundee - Robert Leishman Cameron. He was captured by the Germans and was kept as a prisoner of war at Stammlager Parchim and Stammlager Friedrichsfeld... but that is a story for another day.

Above: John and David Ewing with their mother, Jane, sometime in the 1930s, and David's 1914-15 Star with John's Victory Medal (their other WWI medals are missing).

Walter was born in Glasgow in 1891, and by the time the Great War broke out, he was working as a carter in Dundee (his family had moved there when he was 8 or 9 years old). In January 1915 he joined the Scots Guards, and was sent to France to join the 2nd Battalion in late October. The next few months saw him in the trenches around Ypres until July 1916 when the Guards Division was moved towards the Somme. On the 10th September his battalion was sent to Bernafay Wood and Ginchy where they assisted in the capture of the orchard and took over 70 German prisoners after advancing through shelling and machine-gun fire. It was most likely in this action that Walter was wounded by a gun shot to the chest and shoulder, and was sent back as a casualty. Walter was back in England a month and a half later, and served with the 3rd Battalion until he was finally discharged in London in February 1919. In September 1918 he had married a Brighton girl, Louise Miller.

Walter had never liked the fact that he didn't have a middle name (as most of his brothers and sisters did), as it meant his initials were W.C. His marriage certificate displays the mysterious appearance of the middle name of 'Ronald', the only time it was ever used. My great-uncle Peter told me that in his later years, Walter kept a secret whiskey bottle in the garden shed, where he would escape to when Lu got on his nerves a little too much! Walter and Lu never had any children, and Walter died in 1971, aged 80.

Of Walter's brothers, Peter (my g-grandfather) and David Cameron served as drivers in the Royal Army Service Corps, while Robert Cameron served in the Army Medical Corps - probably also as a driver (ambulance) - and was taken a prisoner by the Germans.

Charlie was discharged from the army as he was no longer fit for service. He became a baker's boy in Lichfield, married and had two daughters. But his strength was always diminished, and in 1925 he died when an oral infection got the better of him, aged just 34.

When I was much younger, about 7 or 8, I asked my mum what 'shampoo' meant. "Well", she began, "it means 'not-real-poo'. Anything's that's a 'sham' means it's not real, and you know what poo is!". I was in my twenties before I actually thought about this and realised I may have been a bit gullible there (in fact, I believe the word is Indian in origin, an import along with verandah and bungalow etc..).

Anyway - I just decided to look up vitamin P (finally)... and it does exist! It is a bioflavonoid:

"Bioflavonoids are found in the white material just beneath citrus peel, as well as in peppers, grapes, pine bark, onions, garlic, blue and red berries, green tea as well as buckwheat."

So she was right on that one, but mum had quite a sense of humour, and I do wonder what other things she told me that might not have been the exact truth. I'm off to eat some pine bark.

"The First World War had begun. In the northern mists the Grand Fleet (21 dreadnoughts, 8 predreadnoughts, 4 battlecruisers, 21 cruisers and 42 destroyers) was at its war base in Scapa Flow, under the command of Admiral Jellicoe. Diagonally across the North Sea the German High Seas Fleet (13 dreadnoughts, 16 predreadnoughts, 4 battlecruisers, 18 cruisers and 88 destroyers) were assembling in the River Jade under the command of Admiral Von Ingenohl." - V. E. Tarrant.

Invincible was involved in three actions. It had a small part to play at Heligoland Bight later in August, and then in December was involved in a naval battle against Vice-Admiral Graf von Spee at the Falkland Islands. But the Invincible will be forever associated with the Battle of Jutland, on the last day of May in 1916, when at 6.34 p.m a salvo from the Dergglinger penetrated the 7-inch armour and causing explosions in the gun-house, turret and the magazine, rent the Invincible in two, sinking it and killing 1,019 men. There were only six survivors, and Mark Cameron was not amongst them.

To boys who had grown up with the heroic deeds of their grandfathers, fathers and uncles, or the gallant officer adventurers in the novels of G. A. Henty, who had read of the brave thin red or khaki lines defending outposts against Zulus at Rorke's Drift, or Afghans at Kam Dakka, and where casualties rarely exceeded 50 on a bad day, or 800 on a disastrous day, the Great War will have come as a shock. Over 21,000 Britons killed in the first day at the Somme in 1916, and 6,000 Britons and 2,500 Germans lost to a watery grave at Jutland is a severe lesson indeed. Today's remembrance focussed at the Cenotaph, 'that mass of national emotion frozen in stone', I always find poignant, but no lesson has actually been learned, it seems.

It's of no consequence, but there you go...