THE reality of war was brought home to a group of students who paid their respects to a soldier from their home town who died on the battlefield at Ypres.

The group of 36 year nine students from Sunnydale School, Shildon, visited the First World War battlefields to help them with their history studies.

While visiting some of the well-preserved trenches from the bloody battle they were able to visit the grave of Private Laurence Cullen, from Shildon, who died aged just 21, in October 1915.

Fourteen-year-old Andrew Moyle laid a wreath on behalf of the school on the young soldier's headstone.

Fellow pupil Billie-Jo Hayes read the First World War poem poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

Andrew said: "I was pleased I was the one chosen to lay the wreath. I was thinking about how he fought for us and had died there.''

The school's head of history, Hylton Balmer, said: "The trip gave them first hand experience of where the fighting took place. When you pass cemetery after cemetery it brings home to students what happened during the war much more vividly than is possible in the classroom.''