Cenotaph memories: Tales behind the town's heroes

The Warrington Guardian appealed for information after reporting on improvements to Bridge Foot cenotaph and we have been flooded with tales of bravery on the battlefield.

Harold Slater, who is one of the many names on the memorial, was mad about sport and played for the Elmwood football team in local leagues before he died serving his country aged 20.

His great nephew Gary Slater has uncovered more details of Harold’s short life from his birth on Longford Street in 1896 and becoming among the first pupils at Beamont Council School in 1907 to joining the Royal Field Artillery aged 19.

He added: "In early 1916, Harold was sent to the front but died of wounds at a casualty clearing station on the Western Front the following year.

"It sounds like he died in agony.

"An army chaplain wrote to his mother Emma on the back of a postcard featuring the well-known wartime painting ‘The Great Sacrifice’."

It read: ‘This lay on his breast as he waited by our altar for burial in the military cemetery where I have just buried him. His grave will be cared for and a cross erected. May God comfort you.'

Harold’s first nephew was born in 1918 and given the name Harold in memory of the uncle he would never know.

He served with Montgomery, with great distinction, as a despatch rider in North Africa and Italy in the Second World War and lived to tell the tale.

A bronze war memorial bearing Harold’s name was unveiled at Beamont Council School in November 1920 and is still on display while he was posthumously awarded a Victory Medal in 1921.

Harold is joined on the memorial by Ernest Lofthouse, of West Street in Warrington, who was killed in action aged 33 in France during the First World War on September 2, 1918.

The father-of-five served with the South Lancashire Regiment and was buried at the Croisilles British Cemetery.

Jack James was torpedoed off the coast of Turkey in 1915.

His name appears on the Warrington and Menin Gate Cenotaph.