Soldiers throughout history have spent their spare time making art, whether to send home to loved ones, to sell or swap for food and cigarettes, or as memorials to fallen comrades. This piece was made by a sapper (Royal Engineer) from the Royal Monmouthshire Regiment, to commemorate comrades who fell at Ypres and St. Eloi during the First World War.

Ypres is a Belgian town, just over the French border and situated in a strategically important region. Ypres saw horrific fighting throughout the First World War. St. Eloi is just a few miles to the south. The scale of the loss of life in this area may be judged by the number of Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries: 171 in all, containing over 47,000 graves. Over 100,000 men are commemorated on memorials to the missing in Belgium; more than 50,000 of them did not receive a burial.