A neglected plot in Buriton churchyard has been restored with help from an anonymous donor.
Eighteen year-old Alan Kite, a second lieutenant with the Royal Air Force, was killed in an air accident in Lincolnshire on May 12th, 1918, whilst preparing for active service.
He had spent most of his life in the village where his widowed mother worked for many years as the parish nurse
Full military honours accompanied his funeral through the village, the like of which had never been seen before.
A firing party of Royal Engineers from Longmoor attended and a long report in the Hants & Sussex News of May 22nd, 1918, described the moving event.
?The sad procession moved along the village high street, passing the school which the gallant officer attended and where the children were drawn up in the playground to silently salute the dead,? it stated.
There are four First World War graves in the churchyard with the remainder of the 39 men from the parish who lost their lives during the conflict being buried or commemorated abroad.
Three of the village graves have the standard War Graves Commission headstone design, but the fourth, Alan Kite's, has always been a normal family plot. His grave, with the Latin inscription Pro Patria (For One's Country), had fallen into disrepair.
Attempts by villagers to find any relatives had come to nothing - but then the kind donor came forward and professional stonemasons were employed to carry out the repairs.
