I never met Barnett, my grandparents’ second son (between Arthur and he were two children who died very young), born in 1897. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916. We have records of his service up to that date, including a letter written by him on June 30th, with drawings of colleagues and a note at the bottom from a fellow soldier “best pal I ever had”, so clearly he was a likeable guy. His body was not found, so one guesses that he was perhaps blown to bits by a shell, a quick death at least. He was in the 1st London Rifles and his name is included on the wall at Thiepval. I have a picture of a Griew marriage in 1900 in which he sits on the ground at the front, with Arthur. He looks about 4 or 5 years old, so maybe the wedding was a bit later than we have been told.
When I find my copies of the letters Barny wrote from France in 1916 I’ll transcribe them to this story, or to a second one.

Griew, who came from a family of Jewish furniture makers in Hackney, east London, wrote home several times a day, providing revealing glimpses of a soldier's life at the front in the build-up to the Battle of the Somme.

In May 1916, he noted: "I am quite happy with my scout job. To tell the truth I almost feel safer in front of than directly behind the trenches. I maintain that if a man gets hit it's either his own fault or destiny".

But as Sarah Kogan explains, her 20-year-old great uncle was an eloquent writer who expressed differing reflections in his letters to three members of the family.

"To my grandmother, he sent most of the photographs and the postcards. To his brother, Isaac, he confided in what was really happening. He always asks 'how much shall I tell mother and father, shall I tell them I'm about to go into battle?' Because of that he reveals everything that is going on," Kogan told Centenary News.

"He has this very strong sense of legacy. He kept everything that he was given and sent it home."Poignantly Barney's letters end on June 30th 1916, the eve of the Battle of the Somme.

"As usual doing nothing, he tells Isaac.

"We are moving about…I may not be able to write frequently in the near future. Will do my best though."

Barney was among more than 19,000 British soldiers killed at the start of the Somme offensive on July 1st 1916, the bloodiest day in British military history.

The Griew family's appeals for information about his fate are recorded in displays of press cuttings, together with a letter from the German authorities informing Solomon Griew that they weren't holding his son.

Barney Griew is among the 72,000 names of the missing remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, the setting for this year's UK/French commemorations on Juy 1st marking the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

Sarah Kogan's exhibition, presented as part of The National Archives First World War 100 programme