DARWEN’S Great War historian Tony Foster has come full circle as his book on the town’s war heroes goes on show in Darwen Town Hall.

Our Glorious Dead has been reprinted as a fold-over In Memoriam display book and positioned on a new, solid oak stand in the reception area.

Says Tony: “It’s all very impressive and is attracting a lot of interest.”

The elegant stand, commissioned by Darwen Town Council and made by Darwen Furniture Warehouse, displays details of more than 1,300 “proud Darreners” who lost their lives in the conflict and its aftermath.

In nearly five years since the centenary of the start of the war, Tony has come up with many stories of honour and heroism, death and destruction.

He started his research in late 2014 at the Commonwealth War Graves section of South Cologne Cemetery in Germany, close to where his daughter Rebecca lives.

Tony found the graves of four Darwen lads among thousand of graves, mostly of PoWs; William Howard, 23, of Bolton Road, Samuel Hebden, 22, of Greenway Street, Wellington Henry Townsend, 27, of Pleasant View, Hoddlesden and Arthur Norse, 19, of Sudell Road.

Private Norse, of the Welsh Regiment, links Tony’s 2014 venture into the cemetery with the In Memoriam book which is now on display. He was the last British soldier to die before the official end to the war that killed hundreds of thousands.

Pte Norse drowned while swimming in the Rhine. Companions and a local civilian made heroic attempts to rescue him. He died in late June 1919, just a few days before the Treaty of Versailles was signed by representatives of all the combatant countries involved in the Great War.

This is why many of our war memorials are inscribed “1914-19”. The Armistice, signed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, marked the end of hostilities.

It took another seven months for the Allied Powers to extract some satisfaction from their victory.

In the past few years several rolls of honour and memorials to Darwen’s war dead have been discovered and a handful are now on show in the Heritage Centre where Tony is chairman. Most recent is a large memorial from the Central Conservative Club.

The In Memoriam book display is in front of a memorial which records members of the National United Services Club on the Green – the “Old Vets” – which went on display in the Town Hall six years ago.