TWO horsemen from the North-East are riding across France and Belgium dressed as cavalry soldiers to commemorate the final few months of the First World War.

This week marks the centenary of the Battle of Amiens, the offensive which proved decisive in bringing the bloody conflict to a conclusion.

Forty-four thousand Allied soldiers were killed and wounded over four days, with German losses running to 75,000.

Ricky Fenwick and Callum Redfern set off from the region on Friday and will meet others from around the country as part of The Last 100 Days group.

They will spend nine days riding horses for around 16 miles a day as they visit the key locations and former battlefields of the Western Front.

Mr Fenwick, 45, from Chester-le-Street, served for ten years with The Life Guards, a senior regiment in Army, which is part of the Household Cavalry.

He said: “It is going to be hard and very emotional.

“We are going to be getting up at 6am and the rain might be pelting down on our backs. It will not be ideal or fun, but these guys did it for years.

“We will just have to suck it up and do it.

“Doing 25k a day in an old saddle, you are going to get saddle sore, but we don’t do it every day and they did. They did not have comfy padded cycling shorts, they had hand-knitted woollen underpants.

“It must have been grim for the lads, so this is a personal tribute to the guys who made that sacrifice.”

The ride, dubbed The Last Hurrah, will end at Nieuwpoort, in West Flanders, Belgium, with game of football using a five foot inflatable ball against a German side.

The group, which includes people from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, representing the sacrifice made people from the Commonwealth, along with Mr Redfern, 22, from Beamish, will be made up of 25 horses and 12 bikes.

The event is being used to promote the Royal British Legion’s annual poppy appeal.

Mr Fenwick added: “We are going to re-capture images that were taken 100 years ago to the day and recreate the old with new. The idea is that the present meets the past.

“We are going to visit a village which had a cavalry regiment watering their horses at the village during a German air raid and were killed.

“We are going to the places that are always forgotten, not the high profile places, we are going to small places where action has happened and men were killed.

“We would like to raise as much as possible but the main aim for us all is to make sure that people do not forget the sacrifice that was given and to bring history alive.

“The whole idea is we are trying to remember guys who were there by recreating what it was like for them.”