By Stephen Lewis

FAR TOO many young men died in the awful war which ended 100 years ago, and which came to be known as the First World War.

For much of the last century, they have been little more than names carved on the stone war memorials to be found in towns, villages and suburbs across the country. The grief and anguish felt by family members who had lost loved ones - husbands, sons and fathers - has long since faded.

The local history groups which, over the last four years, have been researching the young men from their own areas who gave their lives in that war have therefore performed a hugely valuable service.

They have forced us to remember that those young men weren't always just names carved on stone: they were people just like us, with their lives ahead of them and each with their own dreams, and hopes, and loves. And in remembering that, we are forced to confront once again the shocking futility and waste of war.

The Sand Hutton and Claxton War Memorial isn't the biggest or grandest to be found in this country. But the young men whose names are carved on it are typical of those countless thousands of others like them who went off to war and never came home.

Men like Frederick Briggs. Fred and his three brothers had already had a hard life before the war broke out. They were all sent to the workhouse when their father died in 1901: Fred was just seven at the time. As he got older, he was sent out to work first as a servant in a local household, and then as a farm labourer at Bossall.

He joined the second battalion of the Yorkshire regiment as a private, and was killed in action at Ypres on July 31, 1917.

Two of his older brothers, John and Joseph, survived the war and lived on into the 1950s: so at least Fred wasn't forgotten. But it was still a tragic waste of a young life.

Members of the Claxton & Sand Hutton Heritage Group have researched all the young men who died in both world wars, and whose names are inscribed on the war memorial.

And they have published mini biographies of each, along with a general account of the 'Great War', and extracts and old advertisements from contemporary newspapers, in their new book One Hundred Years On... But Not Forgotten.

The aim of the book, as the group explain in their introduction, was simple: to "uncover the stories behind the names commemorated on the war memorial. How old were they and what were they doing before the war? Where and how did they die, and perhaps a little about their families and what their connection was to the local community."

This 80-page booklet does all that and more, and stands as a moving memorial to the young men of Sand Hutton and Claxton whose lives were taken from them in both world wars.

One Hundred Years On... But Not Forgotten was written and published by the Claxton & Sand Hutton Heritage Group. it is available directly from the group, priced £4 plus £1.50 p&p, by emailing Bill Heath on Bill@Lawnswood.co.uk