VIDEO: Tributes to Isle’s war dead

The creation of a memorial book for Epworth’s soldiers who lost their lives in World War One, became a labour of love for the town’s Bob Fish.
Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.
Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.

The leather bound book he has created over months and produced using a Heritage Lottery grant, features each man who died in the Great War on a page of their own, and in most cases with a photograph.

“It was a commitment and I now feel closer to these men than I do to many in the village, because I know all about them from the nature of their wounds to the moment they died,” said Coun Fish, 65, who was recently elected chairman of Epworth Town Council.

His impressive finished work will be displayed in a cabinet hand-carved by local craftsman Ian Till, to be housed in Epworth Parish Church, where there will be a special exhibition in September. Further copies of the memorial book will be reproduced and sold.

Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.
Bob Fish with WW1 Memorial Plaque.

Grant cash to the tune of £680 has also funded a memorial plaque containing the names of Epworth’s war dead, that will be placed, hopefully, at the ‘open memorial’ Thurlow field.

And £3000 will help to sponsor a group of South Axholme Academy pupils on an educational trip to Flanders, after they won an award for their research in to WWI as part of work on the centenary.

To further the personal element of the book, a biography of each of the featured men will appear in a town shop window in the summer, with a memorial display of their choice - the idea of local man Stuart Pearcey.

The town’s art group have produced evocative paintings on the WWI theme to be shown within an exhibition from August 2 at Epworth’s Memorial Chapel Schoolroom, along with photographs, posters, poems and artefacts for people to browse.

(Read more in this week’s Epworth Bells.)