There are very few, if any, Bradford Pals volunteers alive today. But 33 years ago in August 1981 there were nearly 100, and the T&A chronicled many of their stories.

One of them came from Allen Westerby, of Frimley Drive, Little Horton. Mr Westerby’s letter was published as he wrote it. His reflections on a soldier’s life in the trenches are worth reproducing here.

“I am one that came back without a scratch, but was invalided out. Like thousands of others, I did six weeks in the trenches and six weeks ‘on rest’ – route marches.

“We were at a place called Le Bourget, and then on to the trenches. As you know, we slept in dugouts, two together, starved to death at nights, and the sergeant came round with a drop of rum. When we went over the top, we had been given an extra ration – ‘Dutch courage’.

“At a place called Fleur Bay – no sign of the sea. Armentieres at our back and Jerry at the front, all for a tanner a day (sixpence).

“I never saw Madam From Armentieres which we used to sing on route marches. We had a parody on it, and an officer would shout ‘March to attention!’.

“The Royal Family had the best of food and ladies and gentlemen in waiting, and us poor devils tins of corned beef, bully beef, and at the end of each day we lost a few chaps.

“I remember one who put a sandbag on his boot, put the rifle on it and pulled the trigger. We never said owt and he was taken to the first-aid dressing station.

“A sharp-eyed orderly pulled out the bullet, showed it to the MO (medical officer) and he noticed it was one of our own.

“He was sent to a hospital, self-inflicted wounds, ‘SIW’. They were treated like dogs. No lying in bed, choose how ill (sic), they had to do 12 hours’ work.

“When we went over the top, I slipped five rounds in my rifle and put the safety catch on. A big Jerry came for me, I put the safety catch off and pulled the trigger, and down he went. I don’t suppose he had time to say ‘Mein Gott’.

“I could tell you a lot about black shiny faces, just with knives, and Jerry was scared of them.

“They would crawl under the barbed wire into no-man’s land, look over Jerry’s trench and slice their heads off. Good job they were on our side. Jerry was that scared he kept firing Very lights in case them chaps were about.

“Any road, I fell ill and was sent to a Field Ambulance. I was put to bed as I had trench nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys), and after a while, with others, was put on an ambulance train, then on to a Red Cross ship guarded by destroyers, and then on to a Red Cross train and landed in Cambridge. I was that ill, my mother never heard from me for six weeks.

“I joined up at 16-and-a-half with the 2/6th Manchesters. I was out of military hospital, convalescent and home before I was 20, and the cry was: ‘We will make our heroes a place to live and find them work!’ “I was out of work 18 months, that was my thanks. Like a lot more, I should have been a conchie (conscientious objector). That’s it. All the best.”