Five Days Married. Then War Made Her a Widow: The Heartbreak Behind Folkestone’s Remembrance Sunday

There is an empty chair at a table somewhere. A photograph of a young man who never grew old. A wedding that lasted just five days. Children who grew up without their father. Parents who waited for a son who would never come home.

These are the stories behind Remembrance Sunday.

Today and again on the 11 November, people across Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate, Hawkinge, New Romney, Lydd and our surrounding villages will gather to remember those who died in war.

At 11am, heads will bow. The Last Post will sound. For two minutes, we will stand in silence.

But what are we really remembering?

Not simply the names carved into stone. Not just the uniforms, the medals or the battles.

We’re remembering people. People who had lives, families, hopes and dreams. People who never got to grow old.

And people whose deaths left holes in families that could never be filled.

A young man from Folkestone who never came home

Clive Griffin was born in Folkestone in 1893.

His family lived in Radnor Park Road, Julian Road and later Earls Avenue. His father, William, worked for Folkestone Gas and Coke Company. Clive had an older sister called Grace.

When the First World War came, Clive served with the Royal Field Artillery.

He was a brave young officer. In October 1916, during fighting in Greece, he was seriously wounded by shellfire. Despite his injuries, he insisted that other wounded men receive treatment before him.

He died on 11 November 1916.

He was just 23.

This Wednesday, 11 November 2026, marks exactly 110 years since his death.

Clive never knew that 11 November would become the day Britain remembers its war dead. The fighting continued for another two years.

His grave lies in Thessaloniki, Greece, thousands of miles from the streets where he’d grown up.

His name lives on at Folkestone’s War Memorial.

But to his parents, William and Emily, and his sister Grace, he wasn’t simply Lieutenant Griffin.

He was Clive. Their son. Their brother. Someone they loved

A marriage that lasted five days

The Second World War brought its own heartbreak.

Flying Officer Peter McDonnell Hartas (pictured) was a young Spitfire pilot serving with 91 Squadron at RAF Hawkinge.

He was 21.

On 5 February 1941, Peter married Jean Helen Chapman.

They had their whole married life ahead of them.

Five days later, on 10 February, Peter was flying his Spitfire when it crashed at Capel-le-Ferne in extremely poor visibility.

He was killed.

Jean had been a wife for just five days. Now she was a widow.

There would be no first wedding anniversary together. No growing old side by side.

Peter was buried in Folkestone New Cemetery at Hawkinge.

His younger brother Dennis survived the war and went on to become a distinguished pilot himself. When Dennis died in 1994, he was buried close to Peter, as he’d wished.

More than half a century separated their deaths. Yet the bond between the brothers remained.

War didn’t simply take Peter’s life. It took the future he and Jean had only just begun.

The day war came to Tontine Street

Not everyone who died in war wore a uniform.

On 25 May 1917, shoppers filled Folkestone’s Tontine Street. Mothers were out with their children. People were buying food ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend.

At 6.22pm, without warning, a German bomb exploded outside Stokes Brothers greengrocers.

The devastation was terrible.

Among those killed were greengrocer William Stokes and his youngest son, Arthur (pictured). Frederick Stokes died from his injuries the following year.

Women, men and children lost their lives. Ordinary people going about an ordinary Friday.

They hadn’t gone to war. War had come to them.

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s own account records the terrible loss of life and the lasting suffering caused by that single bomb.

The same terrible truth would return during the Second World War, when bombing and shelling again claimed civilian lives along our coast.

We remember those who went away to fight.

We must never forget those who died at home.

The wars didn’t end in 1945

For many families, the end of the Second World War was a moment of enormous relief.

But British servicemen and women continued to be sent into danger.

Korea. Malaya. Cyprus. Northern Ireland. The Falklands. The Gulf War. Bosnia. Kosovo. Iraq. Afghanistan.

Different wars. Different generations.

The same dreadful message arriving at someone’s home.

A son had been killed. A husband wasn’t coming back. A daughter, brother, sister or friend was gone.

Hythe’s War Memorial recognises this continuing sacrifice. Alongside those killed in the two world wars, it remembers people who died in later conflicts.

Their lives mattered every bit as much as those lost in 1914 or 1939.

A Gurkha who never saw his family again

The connection between Folkestone, Shorncliffe and the Gurkhas remains an important part of our military history.

On 4 November 2008, Rifleman Yubraj Rai of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was killed in Afghanistan.

He was just 28.

Yubraj came from eastern Nepal. He loved football and supported Manchester United. He’d served in Iraq, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Afghanistan.

He’d volunteered to take the place of another soldier who’d fallen ill.

Yubraj was also the main breadwinner for his mother, sister and three brothers.

His death meant the loss of someone his family loved and depended upon.

Two fellow soldiers recalled spending an entire night talking with him about their futures.

Those futures were never shared.

Eighteen years have passed since Yubraj was killed. His friends and family were left with memories of a man who was much more than a soldier.

He was a son, brother, friend and football fan.

He had a future.

Two little girls lost their father

Just eleven days later, on 15 November 2008, another soldier from the same Shorncliffe-based battalion was killed in Afghanistan.

Colour Sergeant Krishnabahadur Dura (pictured) was 36.

He was travelling in a military vehicle when an explosive device struck it.

Krishnabahadur was an experienced soldier, respected by the men he commanded.

But he was also a husband and the father of two daughters.

One of his fellow soldiers, Corporal Yogendra Rai, spoke movingly about how much the Army would miss him.

Yet he recognised that the greatest loss was being suffered by his wife and two girls.

They hadn’t lost a commander.

They’d lost a husband and father.

Their father would never watch them grow up, celebrate their achievements or share the ordinary moments of family life.

There is no medal that can replace those moments.

Those whose names we may never read

Even the memorials cannot tell every story.

The Friends of Old Folkestone Cemetery have researched First World War airmen with local connections whose names, they report, are missing from Folkestone’s civic memorial.

One was Lieutenant Dennis Henry Stacey Gilbertson.

His parents lived in Shorncliffe Road. He was killed in aerial combat on 4 September 1918, aged 21.

He’s buried in France and remembered on memorials in Hertford, where he was born.

Why wasn’t his name included on Folkestone’s memorial?

We don’t know. It may have been a question of local rules or information available at the time.

The Imperial War Museums explains that communities decided for themselves who would be named on their memorials.

Whatever the reason, Gilbertson’s story deserves remembering.

A life doesn’t become less important because a name is missing from a wall.

The people who carried on living

We should also remember those who returned from war carrying wounds that weren’t always visible.

The injured. Those who lost limbs. Those who lived with terrible memories. Those who struggled to return to ordinary life.

And the families who cared for them.

Some veterans came home to build new lives. Others never fully escaped what they’d experienced.

For widows, parents and children, the end of a war didn’t mean the end of their grief.

Life continued, but someone was missing.

A birthday passed. A Christmas came. A child started school. A daughter married.

And the person who should have been there wasn’t.

Remembrance is about them, too.

Two minutes for a lifetime

On Sunday, as we stand beside our war memorials, perhaps we can think beyond the names and dates.

Think of Clive Griffin, the 23-year-old from Folkestone who died far from home.

Think of Peter Hartas and the marriage that lasted five days.

Think of the shoppers in Tontine Street.

Think of Yubraj Rai, and the family he supported in Nepal.

Think of Krishnabahadur Dura and his two daughters.

And think of the countless others, known and unknown, who never returned.

They were not all born here. They didn’t all fight in the same war, or wear the same uniform. But they shared something that unites us in remembrance.

They had lives worth living.

For two minutes on Sunday, the traffic will stop, conversations will cease and heads will bow.

But somewhere, a wife never grew old with her husband. A child grew up without a father. A mother never saw her son again.

We remember those who died.

We should also remember everything they never got to live.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

We will remember them.

The Shepway Vox Team

Pro eis nostra regionis qui vitam sua dederunt

 (For those of our region who gave their lives)