Appreciation of sacrifice.

c.1970 I was living in Westbourne, a district of Bournemouth.
I was renting the first floor of a big old house in Ormonde Road just off the famous Avenue which leads down to the sea front.
I was very friendly with the owner Miss Paula White, a charming elderly lady who was crippled with osteoarthritis. We were great friends and I had the run of the house.
No doubt you will be wondering what the above photograph has to do with my story. All will become clear.
The property included a dilapidated wooden garage into which no one must have ventured for many years. I had the idea of clearing out all the rubbish which was stashed within so that I could keep my car off the road.
There were piles and piles of old mags and papers which were all damp and musty: but as I like old stuff I went through it all very carefully before ejecting it.
I found the above scroll and as I read it I must admit to tears and a feeling of deep sadness. I carefully dried it out before cleaning it up as best I could.
How could this scroll have been thrown out as something unwanted and I wondered how long it had just lain there...rotting? Being a scroll relating to the death of a WW1 soldier, it could have been laying dumped and rotting for over half a century!
Was Private Frederick Clift of the Royal Fusiliers just as unwanted by his family and friends as the commemorative scroll itself? Was he like so many others just a young lad who had never had a life, or perhaps he was a more mature soldier.
Paula could throw no light on who he was or how the scroll had come to being unceremoniously dumped in the garage.
Perhaps the answer lay with some previous owner of the property which when I lived there went under the name of Little Owls.
On a trip to London about this time I went into a pub in Soho the walls of which were covered with these scrolls. These however were in pristine condition so they had been subjected to a modicum of care at least. Someone remarked disgustedly 'that this was all a brave man's life merited...a scrap of paper.'
This sadness has been with me for years and I would dearly love to know who Frederick Clift was, a bit of his history and where his final resting place is.
If anyone can help in any way however small, please ring me on 02380861514 , email me at rock505@talktalk.net or drop me a line at...
Ken Rowland, 32 Gover Road, Redbridge, Southampton, Hants. SO16 9BR