A SCHOOLBOY'S evocative poem about the horror experienced by soldiers in the First World War trenches has gone into print.

Ross Collier's composition, The Trenches, reflects the harsh conditions and short life expectancy for soldiers serving on the front line in northern France and Belgium in the 1914-18 conflict.

Eleven-year-old Ross was given a range of autumn-related subjects to put into verse as a class exercise at Bournmoor Primary School, near Chester-le-Street.

As Remembrance Day was approaching, he chose to put his thoughts about the trench warfare of the Great War to paper.

His teachers were so impressed that they put it forward for inclusion in a book of children's poetry, Up, Up and Away.

Other works by Bournmoor pupils were also submitted for inclusion in the junior anthology by compilers based in Peterborough.

Ross's piece came to the attention of Maureen Maltby, headteacher at Lord Lawson of Beamish School in Birtley, where he will start next September.

Mrs Maltby invited Ross into the school to read his poem to sixth-formers and to mixed year pupils in one of Lord Lawson's house groups.

Bournmoor Primary head Sheila Williams said the poem stood out when Ross submitted it last year.

"I was very, very impressed, in fact I was completely amazed by it.

"We have done a lot of work about wars in different countries and the effect on children in particular, and Ross has obviously taken it in."

Ross said some of the inspiration for his poem also came from stories told to him by his late grandfather, Dennis Varman, who served in the Second World War.