GROWING up, Tom Dent, of Blackburn, frequently heard his mum comment ‘your uncle Major was killed at Dunkirk’.

It’s only recently, though, that he decided to find out more about Major Wright, a Second World War gunner who died aged 23.

Paying his respects, on Armistice Day, to his grandfather Robert Wright who was killed in the Great War and is buried in Blackburn Cemetery, Tom discovered that his uncle’s name was not on the new granite memorial plaques, which have been installed next to the cenotaph there.

Now he is mounting a campaign for it to be included, as a lasting tribute to his sacrifice.

Aided by his family, Tom has found out more details about Major, his mother Doris’s brother, and that he served with K battery of the 5th Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, who fought a major battle during the retreat to Dunkirk, in May 1940, against the German 6th Panzer Division, with modernised First World War 18 pounder guns.

He was buried, with four of his comrades, in a small churchyard there, which Tom has since visited.

Tom has also discovered that his uncle was married by special dispensation on Christmas Day, 1939, to 19-year-old Ivy Agnes Clayton, in Middlesex.

He believes he spent only 14 days with his new wife, before going to France and never saw her again.

“He gave his life for his country at the young age of 23 and I appeal for his name to be included on the new memorial plaques in the cemetery,” he urged.