A SPECIAL project has been completed by two year eight pupils from Bromsgrove’s St John’s Middle School to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.
Aaliyah Harris, a youth member of the Bromsgrove Royal British Legion, and army cadet Adam West Morland have been working on Legacy 110.
The Government has funded two students from every secondary school in the country to visit the battlefields of The Great War.
The school’s head of history Daniel McEvilly said: “In October we went to France and Belgium on a wonderful three-day trip and learned so much about the war which could not have been taught in a classroom.”
They witnessed the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gates and, thanks to a donation by the Bromsgrove Royal British Legion, they were able to lay two remembrance wreaths.
“I was so proud of how Adam and Aaliyah conducted themselves and this truly was a moment they will never forget,” added Mr McEvilly.
On their return they began to create their own personalised post-visit project which both Aaliyah and Adam will be presenting to 110 people.
With every student in the nationwide scheme completing their task, the project will have reached 888,246 people, the equivalent to the number of British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell during the First World War.
Aaliyah and Adam, the first two students in Bromsgrove to complete their Legacy 110 project, researched the lives of George and Albert Wallace, two town soldiers who also attended St John’s School before making the ultimate sacrifice in the 1914 to 1918 conflict.
George, who lived at 86 Worcester Street, was part of the army reserves in the Worcestershire Regiment before the war and went to serve on the Western Front in March 2015.
On November 15 of that year, at the age of 20, he died of wounds sustained while he was on sentry duty.
He is buried in St John’s Church cemetery.
George’s brother Albert also served in the Worcester Regiment and was one of the soldiers who had no known grave. He died on the Somme on July 4, 1916.
He was one of three soldiers who suffered a direct hit from a German shell.
His name appears on the Thiepval Memorial.
Visit the St John’s Middle School website at www.st-johns-bromsgrove.worcs.sch.uk for more on George and Albert Wallace.
