A FESTIVAL to mark the bravery of soldiers who served on the Western Front during the First World War will pay tribute to the fallen.

A day of remembrance and celebration will take place in Yarm to recognise the efforts of The Yorkshire Regiment a hundred years after they faced the first enemy gas attacks during brutal trench warfare in 1915 as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

The festival, which is being held in the town on Saturday, July 11, has been organised by the Yarm 1914 Group.

“There was a great deal of public interest last year on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War and Yarm staged one of the most impressive local commemorations,” said group chairman Peter Monck. “Our task is to remember the hardships experienced by local men as the war developed.

“As part of this programme we are staging an event during which the names of the men who fell during 1915 will be read out and during which various aspects of the war will be recalled.”

The remembrance festival comes just a few weeks after the anniversary of the fighting at Ypres in France when The Yorkshire Regiment was one of the first units which had to deal with gas attacks.

The event will be remembering Albert Wastell, who was born and enlisted in Yarm into 4th battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment (the Green Howards) and was killed in action near Ypres on July 15, 1915, aged 19 having been wounded the day before.

The festival will include the reading of poems written by local children who have been studying the Great War, music by Cleveland Police Band, and stands showing war-time rations and other reminders of what it was like to live in 1915.