A REMARKABLE coincidence has re-connected a Canadian man with his great-uncle’s Great War medals.

Peter Shand, from British Columbia, contributed a memorial about his relative Walter Dixon to the Kendal Remembers exhibition - unaware that another display just down the road at the Museum of Lakeland Life had put the Somme victim’s war medals on display.

The connection was discovered by Paul Bramham, the town councillor behind Kendal Remembers.

Mr Shand, who has visited both exhibitions in Kendal this week, said: “I was amazed when Paul e-mailed me to say he’d seen Walter’s medals in another exhibition. It was a remarkable coincidence.”

Serjeant  Dixon - nicknamed Togo - was one of 146 Kendal Pals to be killed on the Somme between July 2 and 5 1916 in what was the most horrific period of the conflct for the battalion.

Afterwards, The Westmorland Gazette reported: “‘Togo’ [Walter Dixon] was right at the front bombing; he went a long way into their lines. Some of our chaps say they saw him killed. Anyhow, he never came back. Poor ‘Togo!’”

Walter, who lived on Windermere Road, attended Kendal Grammar School and was an apprentice engineering draftsman at Gilkes when war broke out. He also played for Kendal Rugby Club.

His parents were John and Mary Ann Dixon. For many years, the Dixon family ran a cafe and bakery in Kendal Market Place.

Mr Shand added "Walter's mother never  accepted his death and she made a pilgrimage to the Somme in the early 1920s looking for him."