Now in it’s second edition, Our Boys by Derek Armes describes in heartbreaking detail how the First World War touched the small Hertfordshire town of Ware. Six hundred and fifty Ware men voluteered or were conscripted and a third of them were killed, with 220 lives lost over the course of the war. Almost every family lost a son, husband or other relative and every street in the town was affected by the deaths of neighbours.
Most of them were members of the 1st Battalion of the Hertfordshire Regiment (Teritorials), who went to France in November 1914 and was one of the first Territorial units to see action. Derek Armes tells their story of comradeship, love and loss from the point of view of the soldiers and their families.
This second edition includes the names of Ware men which either did not appear on the town’s War Memorial or were added when the memorial was refurbished and rededicated in June 1999.