Memorials to those lost in the First World War can cloud the fact that each name represents a man’s life. The inscriptions they left behind, however, recall them as individuals, says David Crossland.

Daniel McAlpine, a private in the Highland Light Infantry, was sheltering in a tunnel under the Somme village of Bouzincourt, France, when he pencilled his name, service number, unit, home town of Glasgow and the words ‘Wounded 3 times’ into the soft chalk. It was early 1917 and his battalion had fought in the Battle […]