My name is Peter Keen and I served in World War One and was technically speaking a survivor. I was certainly luckier than my younger brother James whose name is on the Loudwater War Memorial. At least I had time to be with my two little girls.
I came from a large family and had four brothers and four sisters. We originally lived in Flackwell Heath but by 1911 the family were living in Station Road, Loudwater and my father Thomas was working as a paper maker and my younger brother James and myself were mill hands.
I married my wife Edith Nutt in 1913 and we had two daughters, Dorothy and Betty. Then the war came along. I became Private 28161 with the 1st Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. My experiences in the war left me a weakened man. My wife Edith always felt that I was a casualty of the Great War even though I lived beyond the 1921 cut-off date for a Commonwealth War Grave. I'm certainly not the only man in the cemetery to have died long after peace was announced but to have met an early death as a result of my war service.
My brother James also enlisted in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in High Wycombe and was called up to join the 3rd Battalion on 24th January 1916. He was engaged in training at Cambridge Barracks, Portsmouth, where he fell ill after a bad reaction to a vaccination after only a month. He contacted home and reported that he was feeling a little better and looking forward to his first leave but sadly he then took a turn for the worse whilst on parade and was immediately admitted to hospital where he died from cerebro-spinal meningitis on 24th February 1916 at the age of 23. The funeral was held in Portsmouth on 28th January with full military honours and was attended by several family members. So he is not buried here, in Wycombe Cemetery, with me.
So my parents were to lose two sons as a result of the war but only James is remembered on the war memorial.
