AN exhibition paying tribute to the soldiers of the Calne area who fought in the First World War will run for another week.

Calne Soldiers, by Hilmarton based historian and author Richard Broadhead, runs at Calne Heritage Centre until next August 9. It will then move to Warminster civic centre.

Three hundred men from Calne and the surrounding villages were killed in the Great War and each one is named in the exhibition, including Ernest Bennett, who it took nearly three years to get commemorated as part of Mr Broadhead’s Finding the Forgotten project.

He found the soldier going through obituaries and then traced his grave and contacted the MoD and the War Graves Commission.

He said: “It is a good feeling when you get someone forgotten recognised; there can be no better way of commemorating the war than to commemorate these people.”

Mr Broadhead is urging people to sign a petition to make sure no other soldiers are forgotten, at epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/63797 His exhibition includes ten screens showing original films bought from the Imperial War Museum.

He said: “They tell about a soldier’s life – starting off with the training, munitions, flying, life on the Front in1914, stories about the Women’s Land Army. I guarantee the majority of people won’t have seen this before. There are photos which have just come to light. Three hundred is a lot of people to lose from a community in four years, that’s going to cause a big shock. You’ve got fatherless children, widows. And 300 guys no longer paying tax – you can understand why there was a depression.”