THE people of Ulverston are being asked to help locate the overseas graves of every World War One soldier on the town's war memorial.

This August, Janet and Anthony Eglin of Ulverston Royal British Legion will be among thousands of pilgrims visiting the battlefields of the Somme and Ypres Salient as they recreate the Great Pilgrimage of 1928, when war widows and veterans marched to the Menin Gate Memorial, in Belgium.

Mr and Mrs Eglin want to use the opportunity to place small wooden crosses on the graves of Ulverston's fallen at the war cemeteries they visit.

So far Mrs Eglin, standard bearer for Ulverston's Legion branch, has discovered where 158 Ulverston men are buried - or their names inscribed on memorials - as far afield as Belgium, Iraq, Greece, Italy, Gaza and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Major sources have been the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database, and the family history website Ancestry.co.uk.

She is now appealing for relatives and townsfolk to help complete her detective work by coming forward with further details about the remaining 17 names of World War One servicemen on Ulverston's war memorial, such as service numbers.

They are: John William Bell, William Davies, HC Dixon, Thomas Dunkerley, William Richardson Forbes, Edwin Hadath, Charles Richardson Hird, Robert Jackson, Joseph Johnston, Alfred Kitching, James Edward Porter, William Shaw, John Richard Shepherd, William Stewart, George Waring, William Watts and John James Witham.

Mrs Eglin, a technical services manager for biochemistry at Morecambe Bay's hospitals, told the Gazette: "It's so important that we don't forget the sacrifice of those who died in the First World War - in all wars."

She and husband Anthony, who will be laying a poppy wreath at the Menin Gate's triumphal arch, hope to place a small cross on the grave of every Ulverston soldier at the cemeteries they visit this summer.

"I will also be taking the standard and will do a dip as an act of homage at each of those cemeteries," she said.

Mrs Eglin described it as "really moving" to discover the stories behind the soldiers' names. "A lot of them were farm labourers and had probably never even been off the Furness peninsula. It must have been so strange for them," she added.

Her eventual hope is to compile an archive for the town, and she can be contacted via email at janet.c.1@hotmail.com. You can also fill out a form at Ulverston Royal British Legion, on Brogden Street.