I AM writing this en route to northern France, where I am on a mission.

My destination is a place called Anneux, near Cambrai, where I and my brother will honour a cousin, called Jabez Staples, who was born in Upper Stratton.

On September 21, 1918 Jabez (pronounced ‘Jay-bus’) was awarded the Military Medal, which is given for ‘acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire’.

According to the GWR Magazine, where he was proudly listed among other Swindon railwaymen who served in the First World War, Jabez earned his medal for ‘putting an enemy machine-gun post out of action’ as British forces advanced against the German lines, with the end of the war now finally in sight.

The Advertiser reported the award of the medal and said they were ‘sure our readers will give him heartiest congratulations in gaining this distinction’.

Unfortunately, news travelled rather slowly in those days, and by the time it appeared in the paper, Jabez, aged just 20, was dead.

We don’t know whether he ever actually saw his medal, because, just eight days after earning it, he gave the ultimate sacrifice in a wood, just outside Cambrai, while his unit tried to make the highly strategic crossing of the Canal de Saint-Quentin.

That unit was the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, a bizarre creation since it was a Naval unit, fighting as infantry, and Jabez’s rank was Able Seaman.

He was following in the footsteps of poet Rupert Brooke, who died in 1915, also while serving with the Hood Battalion.

It was Brooke who wrote the poem The Soldier, which contains the immortal lines: 'If I should die, think only this of me/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England'.

We’ve been to Jabez’s corner of a foreign field, Anneux Cemetery, before, but with the centenary of his death approaching and thoughts turning to celebrating the centenary of the end of the war, it somehow seemed right and proper to revisit it, this time with a wreath.

We aren’t planning any ceremony, and probably not even a speech, figuring our gesture to him and his sacrifice speak for themselves.

There are at least four memorials in Swindon that carry the name JH Staples MM, including in St Philip’s Church, Upper Stratton, and St Margaret’s Church, Lower Stratton.

However, he was either overlooked or incorrectly recorded as H Staples in Swindon’s War Record, a memorial book commissioned soon after the end of the war.

So I am glad to say this and other errors have been corrected by dedicated historians over the years, not least by my friend Mark Sutton, the authority on the role of Swindon’s sons in the conflict, as well as an expert on the war in general.

Mark has a priceless collection of photographs, documents, uniforms, weapons, medals and other artefacts from the war that he has bought over the years, picked up off the battlefields or been given by local families.

He talks in terms of being not the owner of these things but rather the keeper of a collection that really belongs, he says, to the people of Swindon.

That’s why he is putting them on display in the chapel in Radnor Street Cemetery on Sunday, October 14, between 10am and 3pm, with a little help from some friends, including me.

So make a date.

It’s a golden opportunity to see the collection and connect with Swindon’s heritage, and a chance to ask questions of somebody who has spent much of his life making sure the town’s heroes are remembered, not just when we reach round-figure anniversaries, but always.