THE personal–and local–cost of war was brought home to pupils from Bridport Primary School when they took part in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Living Memory Project.

On the 100th anniversary of the last battle of the Somme the Year 6 pupils saw for themselves the graves of some of the local casualties that made up the enormous death toll.

They were shown around Walditch cemetery by Sheila Meaney from Bridport Heritage Forum who has researched the lives and deaths of the 17 soldiers and sailors buried at the cemetery.

She said it was important for young people to have a connection to the conflict and to remember local people who gave their lives in the war.

She said: : “The day was chosen because it was the day before the last battle of the Somme offensive and it is probably the one battle everyone has heard of.

“The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was making the point that people travel all over France visiting the war graves and lots of people don’t realise there are people in their own local cemetery who were part of all of that.

“In Bridport cemetery there are 17 graves and memorials to First World War casualties.

“They are scattered throughout the cemetery so we marked all the graves with a poppy.

“The idea was it was a day of remembering local people, of thinking of their families and friends and thinking about all those emotions that go with that anniversary.

“We had a little display in the chapel and we talked about the Somme and conflict in general and the fact that we were very close to some of those people.”

Mrs Meaney told the children some of the stories behind the names - like the Gale family who lost two sons within five days of each other. They were both at the Battle of Jutland.

One was blown up on HMS Invincible the other survived then set off five days later with Lord Kitchener to go off to Russia and the ship hit a mine.

Fought over 36 hours on May 31 1916, the Battle of Jutland was the only major battle of the war fought at sea, but became known as perhaps the largest surface battle in naval history due to the numbers of battleships and battlecruisers engaged.

Mrs Meaney added: “Those stories are very meaningful especially for young children because it makes it very real.

“They were really keen to find things out - they were very interested in how old they were.

“There is one soldier who was 19 who was lost on the Somme and some of them will have brothers that age.

“It was not a morbid kind of thing at all.

It was a lovely morning. It was thought-provoking, it was thoughtful but really interesting and there was a lovely response from the children.”

Deputy Mayor Anne Rickard was also there alongside army padre the Rev Peter Stone and Andy Violet, cemetery superintendent who had artifacts to show the children who all enjoyed the experience.