A RETIRED teacher has pieced together the poignant stories of grammar school boys who gave their lives in two world wars.

Andrew Connell, the former mayor of Appleby, devoted many hours of research to the task, and his fascinating discoveries have been published by Appleby Grammar School in two illustrated books.

"When it was the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War it crossed my mind - as it crossed the minds of people all over the country - that it might be appropriate to explore names on memorials," said Mr Connell, the former mayor of Appleby.

"As I was a long-serving teacher at Appleby Grammar School, the obvious place to go was the grammar school's own war memorial."

As well as the 25 names on the memorial, Mr Connell uncovered three others whose names had been missed, and their potted biographies are brought together in 'They Fell for England - The Old Applebians who Lost their Lives in the First World War'.

Mr Connell continued: "It occurred to me that we were also, in 2015, at the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and I've reached that age where to think of getting to 2039 is a bit optimistic. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss so I launched into a similar exercise.

"It was a bit different because there were still living relatives, which gave a new dimension that hadn't really been there with the First World War. I decided to track down five people who had served and were still alive."

His book 'The Valley Will Bloom Again' sheds light on the tragic fate of former Appleby pupils Bryan Jackson and Thomas Albert James, who both went down on the same ship on September 12, 1942.

Jackson, 27, an aircraft navigator, and James, 30, a leading aircraftman, were on board the troop ship RMS Laconia when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic.

The two RAF men were among several hundred passengers to die, and the events that followed were only fully revealed more than half-a-century later. The U-boat captain decided to surface and rescue survivors, but the operation had to be abandoned when the surfaced submarine came under attack from the air.

"I doubt if their families ever really knew what became of them," Mr Connell told the Gazette. "It took my breath away when realised what I was uncovering."

- 'They Fell for England' and 'The Valley Will Bloom Again' are on sale at Appleby Grammar School and Appleby tourist information centre.