A PRIORITY for The Northern Echo in 2014 is to do justice to the centenary of the First World War.

This is a milestone of extraordinary significance and it must be properly remembered.

Our planning on centenary coverage has been underway for some time and the results are already bearing fruit. Our website (www.thenortheastatwar.co.uk) is developing into a comprehensive, moving and unique archive of this region's contribution to the Great War and exciting plans will be announced soon about a Northern Echo campaign to mark the centenary.

In the meantime, Stockton Borough Council is to be congratulated for unveiling what I think is a wonderfully creative First World War One project.

Stockton's Book of Remembrance lists 1,245 local soldiers who died for their country. In April, packets of seeds will be handed out to schools, businesses and community groups so that 1,245 sunflowers can be grown, each remembering a fallen soldier.

Schoolchildren will be tasked with researching the lives of the soldiers and suggesting what contributions they might have gone on to make to society had they come home from the trenches.

Sunflowers reach full maturity at the end of the summer but the 1,245 blooms will be cut down early to symbolise the prematurely lost lives. They will then be brought together for a remembrance event on August 4 - the 100th anniversary of Britain entering the war.

The sunflower idea links the generations in a simple but stunning way and sets an example to other communities. Let's hope it plants seeds of thought in other parts of the region.