Frederick Arthur Saunders, known as Fred, was born in Eaton Bray in 1889. He was the youngest of four children born to Ebenezer and Mary Saunders, both natives of Eaton Bray and their children were: Jane, Rose, Albert and Fred. Fred’s father died sometime around 1896 and his mother remarried in Leighton Buzzard two years later to Albert Simons. Albert was twelve years Mary’s junior, but he took on her young family and he and Mary soon had two children of their own; Arthur John and Percy, Fred’s half-brothers.

Fred’s older brother Albert fought in the Great War with the Royal Flying Corps and his younger half-brother Arthur served with the Hertfordshire Regiment, both surviving the conflict. His step-father Albert was with the Agricultural Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment and worked on farms in place of younger men who had gone to fight.

When Fred’s mother remarried the family moved to Apsley End with their new step-father and lived at 1 Winifred Road in the village. The family would remain at this address for almost forty years and even when Albert and Mary moved, it was just across the road to number 12 where they stayed until their deaths in the mid-1940s.

After leaving school in 1902, Fred joined John Dickinson & Co. Limited at Apsley Mills in the Book Department where both he and his brother Albert worked as ‘Book Binders’. By 1911, his step-father Albert, sister Jane, brother Albert and Fred all worked at Apsley Mills, whilst his mother Mary was a ’Church Caretaker’. This may have been at St Mary’s in Apsley End where the family were all members of the congregation.

While he worked at John Dickinsons, Fred was a member of the Factory Band which had been formed in 1894 as ‘Dickinson Brass Band’. In 1899 it was renamed ‘Dickinson Silver Band’ and it then continued under various names, formations and amalgamations until the present day and what is now the Hemel Hempstead Band.

By the time he was called up, Fred had worked at Dickinsons for fourteen years and on the 16th March 1916 he attested at Hemel Hempstead and joined the Colours. He enlisted with the Suffolk Regiment but by the time he went to France he had been transferred to the 2nd Battalion The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment).

Research has not revealed exactly when Fred left for the Front, but it is likely to have been in September or October 1916. By the following February, Fred was with the 2nd Battalion near Bucquoy north of Albert in support of actions undertaken by the 91st Brigade. On the 13th March the 2nd West Surreys reconnoitred the enemy positions in Bucquoy trench and reported that these were strongly fortified with machine gun posts at twenty-five-yard intervals, except for one weak area. Orders were given to attack at this point on the following day and at ‘zero hour’ on the 14th March the attack began under a light enemy barrage. The war diary records that "Owing to a light rain and the heavy state of the ground the men had great difficulty getting along or keeping their feet and when they fell their rifles became choked up with mud."

Despite the conditions some small progress was achieved, but two hours later by 3 a.m. it became clear that further progress was impossible and the orders to withdraw were given. The withdrawal was completed within a further two hours. The diary does not document the details of the casualties in this action, but it is officially recorded that Fred was ‘Killed in Action’ on the 14th March 1917. He died almost a year to the day following his enlistment in the Army. His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette a month later.

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited war memorial in Apsley and on the memorial plaque in St Mary’s Church, Apsley-End.

Fred is Remembered with Honour in Queens Cemetery, Bucquoy, Pas-de-Calais, France where he is interred in Grave II. A. 4. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Mary, reads: “IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY DEAR SON REST IN THE LORD”

He was 28 years old when he died.

Fred was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.