TERRY Lavelle was only four when his mum began to read the poems his dad had collected from the days of the Great War.

Sat by the fire, in their terrace house in Blackburn, with a mug of Oxo, the family were content, despite being poor.

The year was 1942 and Terry’s dad James Lavelle was in France, serving as a warrant officer with the Kings Own Royal Regiment during WWII.

In his younger days, James wrote down the poems and ditties he heard as he rubbed from First World War veterans.

It was a poignant reminder that his father John had been killed in the Battle of Arras in 1917, when he was a boy of 10.

Now, Terry has written a book based on those poems. Called Sing Me To Sleep, it also details the battles between 1914-18.

Terry was born in Blackburn in 1935 and attended St Joseph’s and St Alban’s schools, before serving an engineering apprenticeship.

While the family never spoke of loved ones who had perished in the Great War, Terence’s research has revealed that not only was his paternal grandfather killed, so, too, was his grandmother’s brother, Benjamin Leaver, at Passchendaele in October 1917.

His maternal grandfather Wilson Clough, and his brother William, who were wounded in the frontline in the second and third battles of the Somme, died of their injuries within a year of the Armistice.

William, who came from Stubbins, suffered severe facial injuries from shrapnel and was taken prisoner at Gommecort in March 1918. A prisoner of war for six months he lost both eyes and was in a prisoner exchange in September 18, arranged by the Red Cross.

Said Terence: “I could not write this book, without paying some respect to them for the ultimate contribution they made in the Great War.”

John Lavelle and his wife, who had six children, had a confectioner’s shop in Nab Lane, Blackburn, before the Great War and he was a founder member of St Paul’s social club, as well as a member of the poets’ corner at the Bradshaw Arms on the corner of his street,.

A Territorial, John was called up for service with the 4th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment when war was declared and later transferred to the 8th Service Battalion.

He was killed one on the third day of the Battle of Arras.

Said Terry: “My father knew little about his father, but this lack of information about those who went to fight is typical of most families and what they knew about relatives in the Great War.

“I remember as a child, though, that the feelings of remembrance were always very strong within the community.

“Growing up in the street of terraced mill houses, there was a framed, polished wood roll of honour screwed to the gable of the end house, paid for by the residents. It had two bronze vases on a little pedestal and there was always flowers or sprigs of holly in them, someone would also take the time to polish the wooden plinths and keep it neat and shiny.

“We children knew that the names of their relatives were on that Roll of Honour and that included my grandfather.

“Beyond that, there was no talk of the Great War, perhaps because it was too painful.

“I remember both my grandmothers had large, framed pictures of their husbands hung on their front room walls.”

  • Sing Me To Sleep, by Terence Lavelle, is published by New Generation Publishing and costs £9.99 for the paperback and £15.99 for the hardback.