WEST DORSET: Children across the area sang their hearts out in a special concert to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Coronel at the beginning of the First World War.

Children from Symondsbury Primary School, Bridport and St Mary’s Middle School, Puddletown peformed to commemorate the occasion on Friday, December 5 at St Mary’s.

Supported by professional English and Chilean musicians from London-based world music organisation Musiko Musika, the children wrote a series of songs inspired by the story of Robert Frank Buckler, an ancestor of two children of St Mary’s School.

He was born and raised in Burton Bradstock and lost his life when serving as a Leading Seaman on HMS Monmouth.

He appears on the Rolls of Honour in St Mary’s Church, Burton Bradstock, Burton Bradstock Primary School and in St John’s Church, West Bay.

Teaching assistant at Symondsbury Primary, Kerren McAlister Bell, said: “This project has been going on for the last six weeks and the concert was a culmination of those weeks.

“The children had fun and were very excited. Reading about the commemoration of the battle is one thing but writing songs about it and performing a concert made it much more real for them.

“We even had two members in the audience who were direct descendants of two men who fought in the Battle of Coronel, so it certainly was a poignant occasion.

“The concert itself was wonderful and will be something the children will remember for a long time.”

The WWI battle took place on Sunday, November 1, 1914, off the coast of Chile, between a fleet of four British ships, led by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, and a fleet of five German ships, led by Vice-Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee.

It resulted in the sinking of two British armoured cruisers with the loss of more than 1,600 men and was the worst defeat that had been suffered by the British Navy for 100 years.

Two British ships managed to escape and, when joined by battle cruisers, dispatched from Britain, the defeat was redressed with the sinking of the German fleet in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914.

Rachel Pantin, Musiko Musika joint artistic director, said: “We’ve really seen through the project how the children’s understanding of history has developed.

“The link with a local sailor, Robert Frank Buckler, who died in the battle has enabled the children to connect with the reality of the First World War.

“We have seen that in the quality of the songs that they have written for this performance.”