A TRAGEDY involving two children 112 years ago in a North Yorkshire village, is due to be marked tomorrow morning (Saturday, May 26).

On May 26 1900, a brother and sister aged two and four, wandered away from their home near Lastingham, on the North York Moors near Helmsley.

Villagers later found them both drowned in the sheep-dip reservoir below Camomile Farm.

One Lastingham resident, retired army officer Richard Perkins, put up a brass plaque put up near where they drowned. Since the memorial was put up 12 years ago, a waterside service has been held at the spot on the anniversary of the children’s death.

But Mr Perkins feels there is still a lack of resolution to the tragedy. He says the children were buried at the time in St Mary’s Churchyard, but their grave has been lost.

“Their small grave has since become unaccountably lost and, it seems, virtually forgotten by most of the present inhabitants,” he said.

“The ritual of the waterside service at the commemorative brass plate, which I initiated 12 years ago, is no grounds for complacency; it is no substitute for the actual grave, still lying somewhere close by in the churchyard to be located, restored and surely honoured by the present generation.”

A pink and blue wreath is due to be laid at the site at 9am this morning.