ON Remembrance Sunday I went to a very moving ceremony at Tyldesley Cemetery which was organised by The Royal British Legion and was very well attended.

The many local people in attendance included currently serving and retired military personnel as well as our local uniformed organisations.

The commemoration service was taken by the Rev Julian Hartley, who is a local clergyman and area dean for Leigh.

His words painted a picture of the scenes of war and brought home to us the terrible conditions and tragic death toll of the First World War.

And yet it is astonishing to find that the huge war memorial which we gathered around in Tyldesley Cemetery does not bear inscriptions of the names of all the local men who lost their lives in the First World War.

There were 60 men from Astley who died in that war.

The marble memorial which bore all their names and regiments was lost when the old St Stephen’s Church was burnt down in 1961.

The memorial has never been replaced.

Only 11 of those names are inscribed on the Tyldesley Cemetery memorial.

The other 49 men are not remembered in our community.

I think that is a travesty and so I have set up a fundraising page to try to raise the money needed to build a suitable memorial.

You can find it online at justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ michelle-lewthwaite.

Michelle Lewthwaite

Dunmail Close

Astley