A mother keeps the memory of her son alive

Margaret Evison talks about life after her son died in Selly Oak earlier this year and how she set up a foundation in his name
As another two deaths were confirmed yesterday, more than 200 military families across the country are coming to terms with the loss of a son, husband or brother, killed in Afghanistan.

The mourning process will vary, with some days more painful than others, but the cruel sense of loss will remain.

Learning to come to terms with her grief, one mother has found comfort in a foundation she set up in memory of her son, Lieutenant Mark Evison, 26, who died three months ago after he was shot in Helmand province.

The Mark Evison Foundation aims to encourage young people to take on personal challenges – something that had been a distinguishing feature of Lieutenant Evison’s short life.
“Mark impressed everyone with his fun, his active, can-do attitude,” his mother said. “We want Mark’s name and values to live on and his death to have some specific, positive effect.”

Lieutenant Evison was shot under the right shoulder as he tried to extract his platoon from an ambush. He was flown back to Britain still alive but was pronounced brain dead at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham.

Margaret Evison and her former husband made the decision to turn off his life support machine on May 12, three days after the shooting.

“It was very difficult,” she said. “We had the chance to be with him. I always hoped he would wake up. We’d been told there was a slight chance that would be the case and I’m an optimist. I just wanted to take him home.”

Ms Evison is now left with the memories, diaries and photographs of a young man who was not just a son but also a close friend.

“He was such good company so we had a lot of fun together, laughing and talking,” she said, speaking in the conservatory of her home in East Dulwich, southeast London.

When Lieutenant Evison came to visit, he and his mother would often go to the SeaCow, a local fish and chip shop, where they would have dinner, drink wine and talk about anything from the Army to family matters.

The young officer had enjoyed an active life. A talented cellist and pianist, he won a music scholarship to Charterhouse. He was also a keen sportsman, running the London Marathon at the age of 17 and playing a lot of rugby.After completing his A levels, he decided to travel to Australia to work as a jackaroo on a 300,000-acre sheep farm in New South Wales for a year.
He returned to Britain to go to Oxford Brookes University to study land economy. Upon graduation, he longed for more adventure and spent three weeks running 500 miles across Spain before deciding that he wanted to become the youngest person to trek to the South Pole.

“Mark wrote an article about his goal for his old school magazine and a man from San Francisco sent him £5,000. He used the money to go on a polar-training fortnight in Norway, living on the ice in an igloo,” his mother said.

Lieutenant Evison was unable to raise the £90,000 needed for a full expedition to the South Pole, so instead, aged 23, decided to become an army officer. “He took to the Army like a duck to water,” Ms Evison said.

“He was the sort of guy who was always cheerful and would always help other people and that was a really powerful combination.”

Lieutenant Evison commissioned into The Welsh Guards in December 2007 and deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year. His mother said she had been more worried about him getting injured on one of his two motorbikes than anything happening to him on the front line.

His premature death left a huge hole in her life, one that will never be filled but will hopefully become less painful with time. “I think about it a lot at the moment,” she said. “At some point that has to become easier because you have to think about it less. I am sure that will happen.”

Ms Evison also enjoys support from friends, family, neighbours and The Welsh Guards. “People ring me up and ask if I would like to go for a walk or for a meal. That keeps you from becoming too isolated. It forces you to get out.”

Above all, the Mark Evison Foundation will keep the memory of her son alive. It aims to give anyone aged 16 to 30 an award of up to £5,000 to help them pursue a dream, such as polar training in Norway. The foundation will also offer an annual award of £500 to sixth-form students at certain schools in southeast England who want to complete a specific challenge.

Money for the foundation, a registered charity, is raised through donations and sponsored events. About £70,000 has already been generated since the foundation was established at the end of May. Anyone wanting to know more details should go to:

markevisonfoundation.org