Private Andrew Easton

Private Andrew John Easton, 21st Battalion ( 2nd Tyneside Scottish), Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action on 1st July 1916, aged 25, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He was the son of William and Agnes Easton of 33 Hunter Avenue, Blyth and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Thiepval, Somme, France. He was a native of Cornhill-on-Tweed and he fell in the disastrous attack on the German strongpoint of La Boiselle where the Battalion suffered 578 casualties of whom 190 were killed. The Tyneside Scottish Brigade, consisting of the 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd Battalions, lost a total of 2,438 men of whom nearly 900 were killed. The first photograph shows a shell bursting on the German trenches just before the attack and the second shows the Tyneside Brigade beginning their attack precisely at 7.30 a.m. and the colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today with ” no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”.