The story behind a famous photograph taken during the Battle of the Somme has been revealed by the grandchildren of one of those injured in the conflict.

Richard Hopkins and sister Linda Andrews were surprised to see a photograph of their grandfather Joseph Hopkins (Joe) featured on television, in magazines and on book covers.

A picture of Joe was up at Newland Green Farm in Egerton for as long as they could remember, but the image has taken on wider significance as the country remembers the battle 100 years on.

Richard said: “The picture shows my grandfather arm in arm with another British soldier and a captured German soldier as they march to a field hospital at Bazentin Ridge.

“It has featured on the front cover of the Forgotten Voices of War book by the Imperial War Museum, and this week my wife spotted that it was used on the front page of the History Today magazine.”

Joe had enlisted at the age of 23 in February 1916, just months before the British and French launched the offensive at the Somme.

He was born in 1892, the youngest son of a farmer, and grew up in Egerton. He had six older sisters, Mary, Henrietta, Cordelia, Delia, Daisy and Amy.

His sister Mary continued to live at the farm and never married. She kept family mementoes and it is from these that Richard and Linda have been able to discover more about their grandfather.

Joe survived the war, but was injured on two further occasions in 1918, spending 26 days in hospital in London before being injured in October 1918, just a month before the end of the war. He was awarded two medals, which the family still has.

He died at the age of 42 in a road crash on the A20 near Charing in 1935. He was a passenger in a car which skidded and overturned, causing fatal head injuries.

Richard said: “My father never talked about my grandfather, he was just three or four years old when it happened. But he kept the original newspaper cutting from the Kentish Express about my grandfather’s death, so he must have treasured it.”