CANDLES will be lit in a special ceremony this evening to mark 100 years since the death in battle of two Askam soldiers.

Both are named on the Askam and Ireleth war memorial and will be commemorated there at 6pm.

William Relph and William Kellett both died in what was called the Mesopotamia campaign on February 9 in 1917.

They were with many of their Furness comrades in the 6th Battalion of the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment as it was called on to attack Turkish-held positions on the Dahra Bend of the Tigris River.

In the confusion of battle, the bodies of the two Askam soldiers were not recovered and they are both named on the Basra Memorial in Iraq.

The Memories Page will have a full account of the men and their part in the assault on Tuesdsay.

A total of 13 others on the Askam and Ireleth war memorial will be remembered with a ceremony later this year to mark the exact centenary of their deaths.

The ceremonies - and detailed research into village men who died in the First World War - have been organised by the Askam and Ireleth History Group.

Village men to be remembered this year are:

Charles Mailes, died Arras, April 9

Henry Webster, died Vlamertinghe, April 24

James Malachi Wilkinson, died Arras, April 26

Robert Nanson, died Arras, May 9

John Stanley Lynham, died Mindel Trench, May 26

Albert Berty Fell, died Henin, May 31

Eli Burns, died Basra, July 26

Ben Holmes, died Dozinghem, August 5

Mark Pickthall, died Tyne Cot, September 20

Moses Stables, died Tyne Cot, September 20

James Slater, died Zuydcoote, October 26

Harold Kellett, died Cambrai, November 26

J. H. Jackson, died as a prisoner of War in Cologne, December 5