My Uncle Tommy's passing at nearly 90 ends a link with a generation whose lives were marked by war – Stephen Jardine

Tommy’s father was bayoneted and suffered a serious head injury during the First World War

We’re burying my uncle next week. He died just before his 90th birthday, the last remaining link with that generation of my family. Now the buck stops with me.

Tommy was the youngest of three brothers, my dad was the eldest. He ran the family joinery and funeral business because that was his lot. Aged 16, I turned up for a summer job in the workshop. Having spent the morning sweeping sawdust, I left at lunchtime when I realised there was a body next door in the chapel of rest. It wasn’t for me.

Back then, he didn’t have the luxury of that choice and it was far from an easy life. In the 1950s, the premises burned down and Tommy had to rebuild the business. His father had been badly wounded in the First World War. A German shell blew away part of my grandfather’s head, leaving him with a metal plate holding his skull together and a legacy of lifelong fits and blackouts.

Hand-to-hand fighting

Six years ago, on the centenary of the end of the war to end all wars, I made a radio documentary about my grandfather and travelled to Dumfries to interview Tommy and record his memories of his dad. From a side drawer, he produced a handkerchief and unwrapped it to reveal the metal plate, a physical legacy of that cruel conflict.

In response, I was able to tell him I’d accessed some of my grandfather’s military records and discovered that, aside from the head injury, he’d also received a bayonet wound in hand-to-hand fighting. Tommy had never heard that before.

Imagine what it would be like to grow up the son of someone who had been through that hell? Like the rest of his generation, my grandfather didn’t talk about any of it. His many medals stayed in a drawer and I suspect young Tommy was adept at keeping out the way and not asking the wrong questions.

Tommy was a man who said little but listened carefully. As part of the National Library of Scotland’s First World War commemorations, I gave a lecture about my family’s involvement. By now in his 80s, Tommy drove up from Dumfries and sat inconspicuously in the back row. When I went to speak to him at the end, his eyes were red and he held a hankie in his hand.

A traditional funeral

Bluff and tough on the outside, he was marshmallow-soft on the inside. Nothing gave him more happiness than his marriage to Betty and his three sons and grandchildren, except perhaps for a surprise Queen of the South win. Tommy was a regular at Palmerston and I used to look for him every time TV cameras covered a game.

He left behind clear instructions for next week, a church service then a burial in a beautiful old country churchyard. He was a man whose life spanned a time now receding into memory so it’s appropriate his funeral should be as traditional as they come.

I’ve been asked to help carry the coffin to the grave. I’ve never done that before and it feels like an act from another age. But what better way to show your love and respect for someone than to help them to their final resting place. For Tommy, I’ll do that with pride.