Remembrance service to honour 'forgotten' soldier

The Remembrance Day service will take place from 12:30 GMT at Sapper William Hart's headstone

A headstone will be the focus of a Remembrance Day service for a former Cornish blacksmith mistakenly called a deserter by the Army.

Sapper William Hart joined the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in the Canadian Railway Troops and was sent to help maintain the railways in France in 1918.

He died at the age of 35 from tuberculosis while on leave in St Ives a year later, but in the resulting lack of communications, the Army branded him a deserter.

Cornish historian Barry West found Sapper Hart's broken headstone in Barnoon Cemetery in 2021 which has now been restored ahead of the service at 12:30 GMT.

Mr West said: "I stumbled across this broken and smashed up headstone and I wondered whose it was."

The historian said Sapper Hart had been "treated as a deserter, lost and forgotten".

The Army subsequently recognised the Cornishman had been on leave when he died and cancelled the order which had struck him off as a deserter.

The funeral services company Saints restored the original headstone

Funeral services company Saints has restored the headstone while a new stone from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has also been installed.

Mr West said it was a "story that belongs to all of us".

"I think it's been so well received this story, it has hit people's heartstrings" he added.

"People want to know about their history and people have connected with this."