A UNIQUE concert will be held in Selby next month in commemoration of the centenary of the First World War.

Selby Abbey will host the concert, featuring music from Carlton Main Colliery Band, local singers Michael De Costa and Lee Patterson, and several local speakers, on Saturday, November 10.

The concert will be hosted by Perrier Award nominee comedian and Pittancer of Selby Tim FitzHigham, who - as well as having a connection to the town - has a strong family connection to the First World War.

Tim’s great grandfather Arthur Simpson served with the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and survived one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.

Tim said: “I will wear the tie that he wore that, like him, made it through the Somme. He was a footballer, playing for Derby County in the 1913 season, as he then said ‘in 1914 there was an international fixture that lasted four years’.”

Another of Tim’s great grandfathers was John Henry Higham (pictured), who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps and “made it through the Somme, Ypres, Champagne and saw action as far as Palermo”, and was awarded the Military Medal.

Tim said: “Single handedly, with an ambulance he’d commandeered, he evacuated all civilians - mainly women and children - from a town under sustained heavy bombardment from the enemy.

“He was noted for not only going in to get civilians once but going back in repeatedly until he’d got all of them out safely. When asked what he won the Military Medal for, with classic Yorkshire understatement, he said ‘running away’.”

Tim said “the most decorated member of the family” was his great-great uncle Albert Ball, who was awarded the VC, MC, DSO, DFC, Legion D’Honnuer and Russian Order of St George. He was a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and “was noted for not living in the mess, but pitching a tent next to the runway, playing the violin and cultivating a vegetable garden”.

Albert was shot down in a dogfight with the Red Baron’s squadron over Douai in Northern France in May 1917, and Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron, is said to have considered Ball “by far the best English flying man”.

As well as hosting the concert, Tim - who is also a distant relative of Sir Charles Higham, who was involved in the design of the famous Kitchener ‘your country needs you’ recruitment poster - will perform the Last Post at Selby Abbey on Sunday, November 11, on a bugle made in the Higham Instrument factory in Manchester during the First World War, as his family had the royal warrant to provide bugles for the Army, Navy and Air Force.

He said: “The abbey seems the right place to remember very brave men and women who died to give us freedoms we take for granted so often. I hope that people this year really do take on board quite how very brave those people were. It was the first time the old style of warfare, running since the Middle Ages, came up against automated firepower and far too many people lost their lives.

“I’m very honoured to be there to host the special evening and even more honoured to be there on the 11th itself to blow the Last Post. If we don’t remember what’s gone before us, we’re in danger of repeating the same mistakes. I think the world is in a very tricky situation again and we really need to remember what’s gone before.”

All proceeds will go to the Royal British Legion. Tickets cost between £8 and £10, and are available selbytownhall.co.uk