In 1995 we booked a family holiday in north-east France. I decided to do some background reading in order to find out more about what happened in that historic corner of Europe. The first book I read was "Somme" by Lyn MacDonald (Penguin), reading it had a profound effect.

Visiting the Somme battlefields of 80 years ago only increased the feeling of awe at what happened, and increased my respect for those who fought and died. Row upon row of immaculate white headstones in immaculate cemeteries, large and small, name after name on memorials spread along the old Western Front.

I am a Cartmel man, born and bred, and I am aware that the Cartmel men who were lost in both world conflicts are becoming fading memories with few relatives or friends left in the village who remember them.

The men who fought in 1914-18 thought they were fighting in a war to end wars. They endured hardship and death in conditions that we can barely imagine. In 1939 a less naive world embarked on a conflict to halt a tyrant, and local men went to war once again.

I have attempted to gather together all the information I could find about each name on Cartmel War Memorial and make it available to any who are interested. It is not a history of either war, or of Cartmel in those years, but a remembrance of those ordinary people who gave their lives in extraordinary circumstances.