Lance Corporal Thomas Ruffle Neilans

Lance Corporal Thomas Ruffle Neilans, 2nd Battalion, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He was killed in action in Belgium on 2nd December 1917, aged 25. He had been born in Coldstream and was the son of Jane and the late John  Neilans of 45 Duke Street, Coldstream and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. In 2011  Coldstream men John Elliot, Barry Gold, Will Murray, Trevor Swan, Gerald Tait and Phil Moore laid a wreath  of  poppies beside his name on the Memorial Panels at Tyne Cot.. Before enlisting in May 1915 he had worked as a butcher with George Foreman of Norham and is also commemorated on the Norham War Memorial. The photographs show how atrocious conditions in Flanders were. The delicate drainage systems had been smashed by the incessant shelling and the autumn rains had done the rest.