BORN and brought up in Hereford, Private George Richard ‘Dick’ Jones gave his life for his country during the Second World War.

As with so many others, he was never to return home and lies buried in a war grave in France.

More than 70 years after the 24-year-old tiler from Holmer was killed in action, Private Jones’s family is continuing its heartfelt search for a public war memorial in Hereford, his native city, where his name can join others who paid the final sacrifice.

His son, Chris Jones from Lyonshall, has tried in vain to find an official site where his father’s name can be added.

He and his wife Wendy are only too aware that this poignant omission is one shared by many others whose loved ones have died in serving their country without recognition on a public memorial.

Chris has made attempts to have Private Jones’s name added to the Holmer memorial on Widemarsh Common.

But the family was told it serves those who lost their lives in the First World War only.

Dick Jones, who was born at the Golden Lion in Grandstand Road, was already a Territorial Army infantryman when he signed up for duty with the Hereford Regiment.

“When they were mobilised they were tented on the racecourse, though my dad was with the HQ battalion and slept on the floor at Holmer school,” says Chris, who like his father and grandfather, was once a pupil there.

In recent years, Chris has visited his old school to see the roll of honour within the building which bears his father’s name, and he made arrangements for its restoration.

His father was sent with his regiment to Ireland where there were fears that enemy attempts could be made to reach the British Isles.

Then he was assigned to a massive rebuilding effort in bombed-out areas of Coventry and Liverpool.

Chris explains how his job as a tiler, with Thynne’s tileworks near Hereford, had been misunderstood. “

They thought he was a roof tiler!” he says.

After his transfer to the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, the young private was posted off to France where he was involved in fierce fighting at Caen after the D-Day landings in 1944.

Back at home in Hereford, his wife Muriel was increasingly anxious. All her letters to Dick were returned.

After receiving no news of him for three months, she enlisted the help of her MP.

Then she went to the KSLI headquarters in Shrewsbury, where she was to hear the fateful news.

“That’s when she found out he had died,” says Chris, who was born the year before his father’s death.

“Apparently a mistake had been made in writing the number of their house so that the telegram never got there.”

During the 50th anniversary commemorations of D-Day in 1994, Chris accompanied his mother on a pilgrimage to Normandy.

Here Mrs Jones was able to visit her husband’s grave for the first time in half a century.

“She had never seen the grave, it was very emotional for her,” says Chris.

They were treated with due ceremony by president of the Lower Normandy Parliament, Rene Garrac, who presented Mrs Jones with the Medaille du Jubile.

Even during the ferry crossing, the family was given a hero’s welcome by the Brittany Ferries crew.

Chris and his family have returned to visit the grave, taking with them a wreath and 100 little crosses for others to distribute. “We were all in tears at the grave,” says Chris.

He and his mother were indebted to staff at Holmer primary school when they paid a visit to see Private Jones’s name on the roll of honour on the occasion of Mrs Jones’ 90th birthday.

“It’s wonderful that my father’s name is on a memorial in the school, but to see it would mean making an appointment and, of course, it would only be at the school’s discretion.”

He adds: “There are memorials to high-ranking service people in the cathedral, a police roll of honour, an SAS memorial at St Martin’s Church and Second World War memorials in other parts of the town.”

So far he has had no luck in finding an official war memorial in his father’s home town where the name George Richard Jones can be added.

Says Chris: “It would be good if we could get permission to put my father’s name on a public war memorial here in Hereford where he lived.”

Until then, Chris and his family will continue the search for a place where one brave young Hereford man’s name can be immortalised alongside the names of so many others.

As part of his enquiries, Chris Jones has been asked to gather the names of others from Hereford, who lost their lives during the Second World War, but have not been remembered on an official war memorial. Chris can be contacted by email at joneschris@supanet.com