Here is one of the many quiet and very moving services held annually at the Memorial at Breary Banks near Masham, North Yorkshire. The memorial is on the bleak and isolated site where "The Pals" did their initial training, living at first in tents and later in concrete based huts. After one hundred years the bases can still be discerned in the sloping fields. The men came by train from Leeds to Masham and then had to march to the fledgling site. The picture shows local schoolchildren releasing white doves of peace during the service, and the beautiful birds then flew away to freedom in the beautiful countryside. To those of us whose forbears served with "The Pals" in the Hell of the Somme the cermony is very poignant indeed. The 15th Battalion West Yorkshire regiment was cruelly decimated very quickly - my Father was one of those badly injured who managed to make the most of a bad job and he worked bravely until after retirement age.
