How my family connection influences my work at the CWGC

For many people who work at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, it’s not just a job but a passion. For Patricia Keppie, Public Engagement Coordinator for Scotland, working for the Commission has a strong personal connection.

It’s always been a bit of a running joke in my family that I have been preparing for my role at the CWGC nearly my whole life. When I was growing up my family and I spent a lot of holidays and weekends visiting cemeteries. My father and his cousin were always very interested in our family history, and having an unusual surname makes it much easier to search war records and establish connections. My grandfather on the Keppie side and his brothers, whom I never met, all served in the First World War.

The first time I encountered the CWGC was when I discovered that my Great-Uncle James was buried in Turkey at the Lancashire Landing Cemetery, having died while serving as a stretcher-bearer in the Gallipoli campaign. I will probably never know how he came to do that particular job, which I feel must have required considerable courage.

As I was growing up, my family and I made a lasting connection with the Australian branch of our family, descended from those who had emigrated there in the 1830s. I then found out more about Arthur Ernest Keppie, from New South Wales, who also died at Gallipoli fighting with the ANZAC forces. He is commemorated at the Lone Pine Memorial.

In my more immediate family, two of my grandfather’s first cousins fought in the First World War. Peter was with the Royal Scots and was wounded at the Somme and died at home on 10th July 1916. His photograph, below, always makes me feel I’d like to have known him. But at least I can visit his grave, which is in Newington Cemetery in Edinburgh. His story typifies those of the 21,000 casualties we look after in Scotland, which makes it very easy for me to tell people about them in my work.

I didn’t know much about Peter’s brother, John, until I was able to visit his grave in Orival Wood, Flesquieres, in France in October 2018. I believe I must have been the first family member to visit there in 100 years. John died on 1st October 1918, and the inscription on his headstone says, “Ever Remembered”, and he is.

Coincidentally, our local paper, the Edinburgh Evening News, featured John’s photograph on the front page of its 10th/11th November 2018 issue, as a reminder that, during the Great War, they published similar photos every single day.

The family connection continues in France with the grave of Walter Barrie Keppie, a more distant cousin, who was only 21 when he was killed. He was a cyclist, going up and down the lines taking messages, serving with the Northumberland Fusiliers. He is buried at another of our very small cemeteries in the French countryside, Albuera, Bailleul-sire-Berthoult.

My connections with the CWGC completely coincided in 2019, when I visited Shetland to give a talk in schools. I knew that Robert John Keppie, another distant cousin, had moved from Edinburgh to Lerwick as a young man; had served with McCrae’s Battalion, and was commemorated on a panel at Tyne Cot. He was lost at the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), and his wife, with four children, had to wait many months before his death was confirmed.

As I was about to give my talk, an audience member came to introduce himself and informed me that he was Robert’s grandson - my sixth cousin. A perfect synergy of work, family and history.

This is only one quarter of my family heritage, so there is a lot more to explore yet like Charles Browning Keppie buried in St. Sever Cemetery in Rouen, two Australian relatives, and Roderick Keppie, an apprentice golf club maker, who died in Liverpool of fever, having served on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia.

Working for the CWGC has given me a whole new insight into my history and has helped me find out things about my family I would have never known otherwise.