A STORY of eight young men from a Herefordshire village who lost their lives fighting in the First World War has been told for the first time.
The soldiers, who were all from Stoke Lacy, near Bromyard, fell during the Great War 100 years ago.
The story of their bravery has been brought to life by the Friends of Stoke Lacy Church in a 32-page book charting the eight mens' families and wartime postings.
"I am pleased that we have now recorded for posterity the lives of these young men," said Lieutenant Colonel John Caiger, chairman of the Friends of Stoke Lacy Church.
"In future, on Remembrance Sunday each year, as we read the names on our memorial, we will be remembering real people rather than just names."
We Will Remember Them tells the story of Private Charles John Aylett, 19, Private Edwin Whitmore Bishop, 33, Private William Charles Boucher, 20, Rifleman Robert James, 19, Private William Newman, 34, Lance Corporal Albert Thomas Nottingham, 28, Private William James Racster, 29, and Private James Alban Walker, 21.
Before the book was put together by the group, very little was known about the fallen.
But research unearthed stories including the man recruited to war with faulty heart valves, cousins who lived in the same cottage who were both killed, and the young man wounded on an Egyptian battlefield.
"Here are descriptions of just a handful of lives - lives lost - from a small community," said Reverend Clive Evans, the vicar at Stoke Lacy Church.
"Yet each story speaks for millions just like them."
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