A MARKET town’s brass band is to pay a unique tribute to soldiers from North Yorkshire and the North-East who were buried on the Western Front.

More than 30 members of Thirsk Royal British Legion Band will travel to Ypres in October to play Last Post and Reveille at the gravesides of men who died there in the First World War.

Among those being honoured will be Sergeant Henry Appleton, a farmer from Sessay, near Thirsk, who died aged 29 when his battalion suffered heavy casualties under machine gun fire during the Third Battle of Ypres, in May 1915.

He is buried alongside 11,000 others at Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British military cemetery in the world, where the band hope to perform an Act of Remembrance.

The band will also visit Essex Farm Cemetery, where John McRae wrote In Flanders Fields, to perform a tribute to Lieutenant John Walker, who signed up aged 28, having started working as a teacher at Sowerby School, near Thirsk, aged 14.

In December 1915, after suffering the effects of a gas attack, he ignored the orders of the medical officer to return to the frontline, where he was killed by a shell.

Band secretary Andrew Thornton said it had been granted permission to play Benedictus, by Karl Jenkins, and the Military Wives hit, Wherever You Are, as part of the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, where 55,000 names of soldiers with no known grave are commemorated daily at 8pm.

He said the band would lay wreaths to soldiers from the area named on the Menin Gate, including Yorkshire Regiment private Thomas Banks, of Helperby, near Thirsk, who survived just 14 days overseas.

The band, led by former Royal Armoured Corps bandsman Alan Owens, will also play a concert of music from the era in Ypres market square and visit Yorkshire Trench and Vancouver Corner, the site of the first gas attack in 1915.

Mr Thornton said: “It will be nerve-wracking because it’s a huge privilege to play there. It’s hard enough to play at a Remembrance Day service and not feel the emotion. I am not aware of any other British Legion band that has played at the gravesides of First World War soldiers abroad, but it feels right and appropriate to commemorate their brave acts.

“The Ypres area, which we will tour, is suprisingly compact, which makes it even more staggering to think what went on there.”

He added the band was appealing for details of other soldiers from the region who are buried in the Ypres area or named on the Menin Gate, so it could honour them by laying wreaths. To contact the band, email andrew.thornton@btopenworld.com