WHEN Doreen Grimshaw was a little girl she knew that the portrait on her grandmother's wall was her grandfather and that no one ever spoke about him - but she didn't know why or where he was.

Her grandmother had remarried Doreen lived with the mystery until later in life she came to understand that her grandfather: Richard Lancaster had been lost in 1914 in the Great War and his body had never been found and given a proper burial. In recent years, curious to know more about Richard, she had visited the Fusiliers' Museum to enquire about him.

Born in 1882, Richard Lancaster enlisted into the Regular Army on March 1, 1901, and served for nearly four years. He left regular service in January of 1905 and joined the Army Reservists. Like many of his fellow soldiers from Lancashire, Richard was a weaver in civilian life and in September of 1905 he married Phoebe Porter, also a weaver in Burnley. After the German threats to Belgium in 1914, the British Government gave the order to mobilise and after nine years of married life, Richard Lancaster was one of 1,454 reservists who was called up and sent to fight.

In 2006 archaeologists in Belgium found the remains of three Lancashire Fusiliers and after detailed investigation in the museum's archive and by pathologists, one of the bodies was identified as Richard Lancaster, who had been killed in action only eight months after arriving in Belgium.

Last week on July 4, Doreen, now Richard's closest living relative was in Ypres to witness the burial of her grandfather with full military honours, 90 years after his death.

A small party from the Museum Project Team was there to film the burial and to record other footage for a documentary film that will appear in the new museum along with the small artefacts including part of his cap badge, that were discovered with the body.

The occasion of the burial was very moving, with senior members of the regiment there, as well as several members of the family, a large band, many local people and a contingent of young regular soldiers sent over from Germany to honour their dead comrade from so long ago. As well as hymns and readings there was a gun volley and the Last Post was sounded.

The most moving account of the story came from Doreen herself, who spoke of the immense pride that she felt and the peace that she believed the occasion would have brought her grandmother, whom Doreen remembers with great love and loyalty.

Doreen said: "It was a day of mixed feelings, of course. It was in some ways a sad day, but also the proudest of my life. I am a great-grandmother myself and after today I do feel that these terrible losses of the past are not forgotten and that young people still understand and learn from the past."

Looking at history through the real lives of people in the past and their impact today, will be at the heart of the new museum at the Arts and Crafts Centre.