One of a series of stories and place-based sketches exploring locations that sit at the edges of the narrative told in The Écrivélo Book.
The Head-Stone with Two Names.
I have wanted to visit this grave in particular for a long time. This is the grave of Corporal 2982682 John Avery Lockart of the Eighth Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who died on the sixth of June 1940, days before the fall of the 51st Division at St Valéry.
Dual Englistment
The man whose body lies in this grave was born Colin Langley PANTON. He enlisted and died under an alias, John Avery LOCKART. It was not until after the war and extensive police enquiries that the story could be untangled and the correct name added to the headstone.
Years later, Colin Panton’s brother Alastair (who flew with John Christie) wrote a memoir of his RAF days during the Battle for France. Alastair knew the truth, but he never put it on the page.
Whilst researching the early days of Christie’s RAF career for the 1944 Mosquito crash near Ternand, the deeper I dug into the text of Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer, the less the record added up.
A forensic odontologist helped close the case. Full story in Écrivélo.
When I left the Police, I never dreamt that I would require the expertise of a forensic odontologist again.
Colin’s brother Alastair Panton had just been promoted to Acting Flight Lieutenant, flying Bristol Blenheims. Fifty years later he wrote of his days with 53 Squadron during the Battle of France in 1939 and 1940. Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer describes his life as a Blenheim pilot, flying alongside Sergeant John Christie as they watched the German army advance across Belgium. My book Écrivélo covers the days I spent in and around Poix de Picardie, tracing their lives with this memoir as a guide.
Colin Panton’s grave came onto my radar not because it was lost, but because it once carried a different name. He had enlisted under an alias, John Avery Lockart, and it was only after the war, through police enquiries, that the mistaken identity was resolved.
Here is the strange part. The author of Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer, Colin’s own brother, knew the truth. He never put it in the book.
I was using the memoir as a touchstone while tracing the early life of John Christie, the Scottish airman who died in a Mosquito crash near Ternand in 1944. But the deeper I dug into the Poix community, the more the anomalies stacked up against the text.
The lesson, as ever with eighty year old memories: never trust a single source. Corroborate everything.
The full story, and how a forensic odontologist I had worked with in the past helped confirm beyond doubt that Colin Panton and John Lockart were one and the same, is in Écrivélo.