A WOMAN who tragically lost two elder brothers at sea in the Second World War has welcomed the start of work to renovate the Cenotaph in Holyhead where they are commemorated.
Retired nurse Sarah Jones was just a schoolgirl in the Anglesey town when her brothers Ernest and Idris John Jones died, at sea like so many men from the port who served with the Royal and Merchant Navies.
Ernest’s loss was especially tragic as he died in an accident shortly after the ship he was on, the Flying Kite, was involved in the recovery of the submarine Thetis which sank during trials in Liverpool Bay in 1939 with the loss of 99 men.
Mrs Jones, 82, whose family home was at Kingsland, in Holyhead, said: “I’m very pleased that the Cenotaph is to be restored to pristine condition. It is an important monument to so many people from the town who lost their lives.
“It is right that we remember their sacrifice and that we maintain the Cenotaph in their memory.”
Ernest was 18 when he was killed in an accident during the refit of his ship at Greenock on the River Clyde at Glasgow.
Mrs Jones, whose mother died when she was just three, said: “He was only young and was only thinking about getting some wages to send home to our stepmother.
“His body was brought home by my father Richard Jones, who was himself a survivor of the ill-fated Tara, torpedoed in the First World War, to be buried with his mother in Maeshyfryd Cemetery and I go there as often as I can.
“My other brother, Idris John Jones went into the Royal Navy and I remember going to the local Post Office to collect his Naval Allowance.
“He had just sent home a photograph of himself, he was barely 18 and he died when serving on a landing craft on the North Afica coast in the Mediterranean.