A PENSIONER has been honoured for his work in helping people find thousands of war graves across the world.
Braunston resident Bruce Caldwell, 68, has been working with two other men to mark the exact spot of almost 20,000 Commonwealth cemeteries across the world.
Mr Caldwell, along with Terry Denham and Mike Cole from West Sussex, were honoured for their work on Tuesday by the Duke of Kent during a ceremony at St James’s Palace.
Mr Caldwell, who has no relatives who died in either of the two world wars, said: “It was a real honour to receive the commendation from the Duke of Kent, especially for something which started out as just a hobby, then snowballed from there.”
His interest developed after he visited a war cemetery in Ypres, Belgium six years ago.
Before his trip, he decided to search online for the exact location of the cemetery he was planning to visit.
After finding no record on the internet, he decided to try and plot the exact location himself.
After logging the first site, he carried on logging the locations of more cemeteries.
Despite the three men working together closely on the project, they have only met a couple of times as all their research and communication is carried out online.
Matt Morris from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said: “We’re so grateful for what these guys have done.”
To see more research that went in to finding out about the graves visit www.cwgc.org