ALCESTER town councillor John Bunting is giving a talk and photographic presentation on Alcester before during and after the First World War.

Councillor Bunting has been researching the period for some years following on from a project to find out the story behind each of the names on the town’s war memorial.

This presentation discusses the fate not just of the Alcester soldiers, but of the men who returned to Alcester after the fighting and carried on with their lives, and shows images of the town and its residents dating back to before 1914 showing how Alcester coped, adapted and changed as a result of the conflict

Coun Bunting said: “There’s a lot of stuff in the Alcester Chronicle from the time. One in 10 of the soldiers died, so nine came home. What I’ve decided to do is not include thousands of pictures of dead soldiers, but look at the history of certain people who came back, and what they went on to do, like Mr Smith who was the local estate agent. He went on to become the high bailiff. He’d been in the Alcester Church Lads, then he went to the war, and then stayed on with the British Army until 1920. He even worked as an air raid warden during the second world war.”

The talk, which is taking place on Friday, June 27 at the Jubilee Centre from 7pm is raising money for the British Legion, which is hoping to help several cadets make a trip to visit some of the wartime battlefields, and mush of the material will go on to form part of a public exhibition, which will be going up in Globe House to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One.

Tickets for the talk are £5 each and can be purchased from Sue Adams on 01789 400371 or Mike Gittus on 01789 488027.