Bishop pays tribute to heroic Pals

Relatives and friends of the fallen soldiers were among parishioners who remembered a generation of men shattered in the Battle of the Somme.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Alan Chesters, led the tributes at St John the Evangelist Church, Accrington, where a memorial chapel to the Pals was set up in 1992.

The annual service marked the 84th anniversary of the Pals' farewell parade, which was held at the church before they went off to battle - and many never came back.

The recruits of the 11th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment hailed from Accrington, Oswaldtwistle, Church, Great Harwood, Rishton and Clayton-le-Moors.

Three Pals platoons also came from Burnley, three from Chorley and two from Blackburn.

The 1,100 Pals joined one of the first squads assembled from the same area of the country in an attempt to boost war-time morale. In total, 865 Pals lost their lives. One of the First World War's bloodiest episodes saw 235 of the Pals killed and 350 wounded in just 20 minutes on July 1, 1916.

Seven hundred Pals went "over the top" of the trenches near Serre, Northern France, only to be mowed down by German fire.

The total number of men lost from Accrington was 64, which was proportionately one of the biggest losses in the country. Some families lost father and son.

Bishop Chesters told the congregation: "They were ordinary men, many of them married with young families. Some were so young they had to lie about their age to enlist. They came from every walk of life - the rich and the professional sharing in the common cause with the poor and the apprentice.

"There was a praiseworthy sense of duty and community spirit about them which is not so readily found in our times.

"The carnage is one of the events of suffering and adversity which unites the people of East Lancashire out of a sense of compassion."

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