Kenneth Hague, like the author of this book, was born in Sheffield in an area called Walkley.  Very little is known about his youth but it is known that he moved to Filey when he took a local girl to be his wife.  The couple settled and had four daughters at 1, Cliffords Yard (now Cliffords Terrace).  He was a professional soldier for much of his younger life and served with the East Yorkshire Regt. in the Boer War (1899- 1902), where he had two horses shot out from under him, and when war was announced in August 1914 rushed to Hull to rejoin his old regiment.  His service number indicates that he was still ‘on-strength’ with the 3^rd(Reserve) East Yorkshires.

          He was placed back in is old battalion, the 1^st East Yorkshires (primarily a ‘regular’ battalion, and not one raised specifically because of the war) and was sent out very early on to France.  He fought there for nearly eighteen months until on the morning of July 1^st 1916 he went ‘over the top’ as one of the first waves of the Somme Offensive and was never seen or heard from again.

          The local paper, the Scarborough Mercury, had a sad further tale to tell, as Kenneth was recorded by the military as being M.I.A. (Missing In Action) and not as K.I.A. (Killed In Action).  His family became convinced that Hague was alive, and when a soldier matching his description appeared in a hospital in the South of England suffering from amnesia in early 1917 they rushed to see him.  It turned out that this was not Kenneth, but the family nevertheless clung on to the fact that he hadn’t been declared dead, and it wasn’t until the war ended two and a half years later that their hopes were finally dashed.  To this day no trace of Kenneth Hague has ever been found and he is remembered on the Thiepval memorial for all the men of the Somme campaign who suffered the same fate.

Click here to read the 1st Battalions war diary for the weeks leading up to Kenneth's death.