The Somme remembers: An Armenian son lost in the First World War

In 1916, during the First World War, the fields of northern France were no longer fields at all, but a terrifying wasteland of mud, broken trees and endless shell holes. Day after day, gunfire cracked through the cold air as exhausted men stumbled forward, the ground shaking with every blast, the world reduced to noise, fear and death. Among this living hell known as the Battle of the Somme was a young Armenian man named Aganoor.

Aganoor John Aganoor was born on August 29, 1891 in Feltham, West London, the son of Petrus Basil Aganoor and Mabel Frances Aganoor. His father, an Armenian born in the Dutch East Indies, came to Britain via the Netherlands and became a naturalized British citizen. A successful businessman, he also served as Secretary of the Anglo-Armenian Society. Aganoor grew up with his two beloved sisters, Kathleen, a year older, and Margaret, three years younger, in the family home at 52 Bath Road in Chiswick.