Sydney Alfred Hollands was born in Platt on 23 March 1894, the eldest of five children of Frank and Harriet Hollands (née Fuller). At the time of his son’s birth, Frank worked as an agricultural labourer and was employed by Mr Lauser of Beechin Wood Farm.

Sydney attended Platt School, and by 1905, the family lived at Rose Cottage. After a spell as a resident at Kettle Cottage, the family then moved to No.3 Church Villas, which was built by Sydney’s maternal grandmother, Harriett Fuller, who also ran the Blue Anchor pub. Sydney’s father eventually took over the pub in 1913, and he opened his old house as a confectioners’ shop. Sydney helped with the family business and travelled around the local area with one of his brothers on his father’s horse and trap, selling confectionary, soft drinks, tobacco and even haberdashery.

When war broke out in 1914, Sydney had been working as a farm labourer, and on 7 August, he became one of the very first from Platt to enlist. He attested in Maidstone and was described in a medical examination as 5′ 6″ tall, 125lbs in weight and having blue eyes and brown hair. The examining officer passed him fit for service, and he joined The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) and sent to the regimental depot (also in Maidstone) for training.

Four months later, on December 7, 1914, Sydney was assigned to the 1st Battalion, which was already fighting on the Western Front and was either among the draft of 236 NCOs and men who arrived at billets in Dranoutre, Belgium, on the 12th or the 50 who joined on the 18th. Either way, he probably spent Christmas in St. Jans Capelle and, like everyone else, would have received a Christmas card from the King and Queen and Princess Mary’s gift of cigarettes, tobacco and a pipe. The battalion held the line south of Ypres at Wulverghem throughout much of the second half of December, and Sydney probably gained his first taste of life in the trenches during this period. Owing to extremely wet weather at the start of the month, the trenches in this part of the line were described as being in a ‘shocking state’.

The West Kents remained in the Ypres Salient until 19 February 1915 when, after a brief period in Bailleul’ standing by’ in readiness to move at short notice, they returned to the area. Sydney would have reached billets in Vlamertynghe during the night of 19 March before moving up to the trenches at Zillebeke the following day. The opposing lines were much closer together than those in Wulverghem, and the Prussians based there were particularly aggressive, so the battalion did their best to return the ‘hate’ and kept them occupied by firing over ‘jam tin’ bombs and rifle grenades.

Over the next few weeks, Sydney’s unit rotated between the front line and various support positions, and by 20 March, they held the trenches at Kruisstraat, where they were subject to frequent enemy artillery fire and mortar bombing. Two days later, which happened to be the eve of Sydney’s 21st birthday, the section of the line in which he was occupying suffered a direct hit from a German trench mortar bomb. The scene was described as ‘calamitous’ with little trace of the previous occupants left and only the partial remains of a sergeant and a corporal identified by their chevrons.

Sydney was among those annihilated by the blast, and consequently, he has no known grave. He is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial in Belgium and his parent’s grave in the Platt churchyard.