A GROUP of 80 year six children and teachers from across Lancashire will be travelling to France tomorrow to mark the role that soldiers from different religious backgrounds played during the First World War.

A special parade will take place on Tuesday from the Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle, which is where the Indian Corps first deployed exactly one hundred years before, on October 28, 1914.

The memorial commemorates more than 4,700 Indian soldiers and labourers who lost their lives on the Western Front during the First World War and have no known graves.

The children will be accompanied by soldiers from the B Company Second Batallion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

Eighty soldiers from Wheeton Barracks will be travelling to France, as well as a band of 35 who will be playing in the parade.

Major Bob Smethurt said: “It’s an opportunity for the children to learn about the First World War, but not just the stories people have been hearing.

“This is to hear the stories of the different ethnic groups who now are part of Lancashire, and what they did in the war.

“What we’re trying to do is tell people about the suffering of all the different nationalities and indeed different religions.

“Fathers and grandfathers of people who live in Lancashire today were all fighting together, for Sikhs, for Muslims, for Hindus, for Christians.”

As well as visiting the Memorial at Neuve Chapelle, the children will spend a night in Belgium and visit The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, the trenches, and the Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres.

They will take in Diksmuide Trenches, Tyne Cot Military Cemetery, Talbot House and Essex Farm Cemetery, and will also be taking part in The Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate.

Community activist Faz Patel, who works with the army on community cohesion, is also going on the trip.

He said: “It is celebrating our shared history of the Jullundur campaign.

“I’m looking forward to giving a reading from the Quran.”

The Jullundur Brigade is a 90-year-old association of 'blood brothers in arms', uniting soldiers of different religions.

Schools taking part include Stoneyholme Community Primary School, Barrowford Primary School, Palm Tree School , Blackburn, Wheatley Lane Primary and St Philip's Church Of England Primary School.