Ralph N. Hudson

Re. The Bradford Pals.

I grew up in the shadow of two battalions of "Kitchener's Pals" raised by the town, both decimated on the Somme.

I grew up in a Yorkshire mill town where many young women did not marry because there was a shortage of young men. A town that had lost its best young men.

As I approached an age when I would be too old to fight in any futurec war but my son would I became appalled by the implications of war and particularly the destruction of these two battalions. I resolved to find out what happened to them. This led me to meet many of those volunteers who had survived who told me of their experiances. This is their story,not mine.