Adding as background to Private Peter Black...
The memorial's design was entrusted to Edinburgh architect Sir Robert Lorimer. He decided Black was 'unsuitable for a Roll of Honour' and claimed a number of bereaved parents had refused to submit the names of their sons for commemoration if he was included.
It was a lie. Mr Van Emden said: 'There was vociferous objection and the townsfolk threatened to wreck the memorial.' It was no idle threat, as two former soldiers, with the unlikely names of John Spark and James Squib, stole explosives from a local quarry and warned they would blow up the cenotaph if the demands of the community were ignored.
Everyone in the town had known and liked the gentle Black, who suffered from a mild mental illness.
Spark said later that Black should never have been sent to the Front.
In fact, the 'deserter' fought at the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge and Loos before he disappeared on the eve of the Somme.
In a letter to the local paper, one bereaved mother wrote: 'If his name is omitted, then they may as well leave my laddie's off, too.'
A public meeting in the town in May 1922 was attended by 300 people, whose campaign forced the memorial committee to resign.
When the memorial was unveiled four months later, it bore the name of Black, whose body lies in the Trois Arbres Cemetery in the French town of Steenwerck. He was eventually pardoned in 2006.
Mr Van Emden said: 'The dispute between those in public office and former servicemen was never better illustrated.'
