Cecil Packer was a farm labourer, a factory worker, a shepherd and a devoted family man from Wiltshire who like so many others was sent to France to fight for his country in the First World War, and never returned. Cecil survived both the Gallipoli and Somme campaigns, so for his descendants, his death on the Western Front when his battalion was far from the front line was a mystery as well as a tragedy. Alan Gaunt, whose wife Shirley is Cecil's great-granddaughter, set about researching Cecil's humble but interesting life and finally established the tragic circumstances of his accidental death in December 1916 at the age of 31."This is not the story of a traditional hero in the mould of Nelson or Wellington but that of a village shepherd, a local man who did not come from the nobility or the ranks of the nation's leaders but simply loved his family and died in the service of his country."

George Gaunt was a quiet and gentle man, but a firm disciplinarian who was devoted to the service of his king and country. At the age of 21 he left his Yorkshire home to enlist in the Coldstream Guards, where he went on to serve his country with dignity and honour, though a trivial sporting injury cost him the chance to fight on the field of battle during World War II. In peacetime George became a respected publican in a Gloucestershire village, and the entire community mourned his early passing. Thirty years after he died, his son Alan was astonished to receive a letter revealing that George had been married before he had met Alan's mother and had even raised two earlier children. The letter brought a happy reunion between the two sides of the family. It also started Alan on a trail of enquiry which enabled him to piece together a comprehensive and fascinating account of the father he had lost when he was only 13 years old.