I AM writing in support of my brother, Mr David Ainsworth, who contacted you about the plans to move the war memorial at Dunscar, and to make my own protest.

As pointed out in your article in the Bolton Evening News, Thursday, July 15, we have two uncles listed on the Memorial (or, as we call it, "the lonely soldier") - Thomas and Harry Taylor - who were both in occupations that exempted them from the call-up, but they thought it was their duty to go to fight for their country.

You mentioned in your article that they were both killed within a short time of one another. When their mother was informed, she went grey overnight with the shock. After the war she was asked to unveil the War Memorial in Walmsley Church because she had lost two sons, one of whom has no known grave as he was blown to pieces, and it saddens me that anyone could contemplate touching something that, to our family, is sacrosanct.

This Memorial is people's lives, not just a piece of stone.

In the year 2000, my mum, dad, brother and myself went to France to visit the war graves - we were the first in our family to be able to do so.

Mrs P Guy

Horridge Fold

Egerton