SCHOLARS on the Argyle Football Education programme, run in partnership with Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, paid a visit this week to Weston Mill Cemetery.
The trip was part of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC) Living Memory Project to encourage the British public to remember the forgotten front; the 300,000 war graves and memorials in Britain from both world wars, in time to mark the centenary of the 141-day Battle of the Somme.
The CWGC Living Memory Project aims to encourage community groups to discover, explore and remember their war heritage – with everyone in the UK having at least one war grave three miles from their front door.
In the UK alone, there are more than 12,000 sites commemorating men and women from the First and Second World Wars.
Maggie Smith from the Friends of the Fallen, said: “The men who fought at the Battle of the Somme did so in some of the most horrendous conditions and saw many of their fellow comrades killed or badly wounded. We must never forget them, and instead remember these men by visiting their graves here in the UK and finding out their stories.
“With more 300,000 war graves and memorials in the UK, I would urge people to get together and explore their nearest war graves – find out about the person behind the headstone and remember them for the sacrifice they gave.”
The majority of men and women buried or commemorated either died in a British hospital of injuries sustained during the First World War or in the influenza pandemic that followed.
Remembering those buried in CWGC war graves in the UK is a fitting way to mark the Somme centenary.
CWGCs Living Memory Project, part-funded by the government, is working in partnership with community engagement specialists, Big Ideas Company.
Any community group interested in the Living Memory project can register now by emailing livingmemory@cwgc.org or visiting www.cwgc.org/livingmemory.