A service of dedication was held at St Paul’s Church Cwmtillery on Tuesday 4 April 2006.

It was to dedicate a headstone over the grave of a former Boer War and Great War veteran, Mr John Musselwhite. His grandson, also John Musselwhite, aged 71 and now living near Aberdeen,  only recently became aware that his grandfather's grave did not have a headstone. This realisation followed the discovery of a photograph of a platoon of soldiers, all volunteers, about to embark for active service in South Africa in 1901.

His grandson takes up the story......

“My grandfather was born in Sutton Veney, in Wiltshire, and was one of tens of thousands of men and their families who emigrated from the adjacent English counties (Gloucester / Worcester / Somerset / Devon / Cornwall etc.) in the 19th Century to work in the fast-developing industries of South Wales  ( coal, steel, tinplate, railways and docks).
He, like most English country folk of the time, was loyalist and Royalist and, newly resident in his adopted home of Abertillery, he had no hesitation in answering the call for volunteers to serve Queen and Country in the Boer War, and was shipped out to Cape town in Feb 1901, with "H" Company of The South Wales Borderers, largely drawn from the Abertillery area.
His diary of the time gave a strong flavour of what it was like as a foot soldier, marching day after day up through the spine of South Africa (and back!)………..there were no mechanised vehicles then !    His medal for that service carries 5 campaign bars.
He probably thought that, having survived those ordeals, he could look forward to a life uninterrupted by military activity.........however, it was not to be.
Fourteen years later, at age 40, he was drafted into The Royal Engineers, to serve in France in, what became known as , The Great War.
He was never one to personally glorify these exploits being a  very modest man who saw such military service as a duty to Queen and Country.

 If we are looking for an historical parallel of someone whose military record rather matches that of John Musselwhite, we need look no further than Cpl Jones, of Dad's Army fame.....but the similarity ends there; and anyway he didn't serve in the Home Guard, because by this time he was laid low by a chest disease, contracted no doubt by his years as a coalminer.
He was, nevertheless, between the wars, and during the '39 / '45 War, very active within the Abertillery British Legion Branch, as was his wife Ellen.
This service not only honoured one man: It also acknowledging the part that many in the Abertillery community played, all those years ago. "

The actual act of Dedication of the headstone was very poignant, as was the lone bugler standing at the grave side.

As the last notes of the” Last Post” echoed down a cold and windy hillside,  it brought home the memory of what all those past and present service men and women did, and are still doing today to safeguard our freedom.