CREWE residents and town council members joined together to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme last week.

The council organised a series of events, from Thursday evening through to Sunday, marking the start of the First World War’s bloodiest battle.

Crowds gathered in Memorial Square on a rainy Thursday evening for a candlelit vigil and the reading of poems, letters and prayers, accompanied by a symbolic red flare.

On Friday Memorial Square hosted a two-minute silence at 7.30am, marking 100 years to the minute since the battle began.

Whistles were then sounded, emulating the soldiers’ signal to leave the trenches and head ‘over the top’.

That afternoon saw an act of remembrance, again in Memorial Square, where schoolchildren placed wooden crosses to form a giant cross close to the poppy monument.

Each cross bore a poppy and the name of one of the Crewe men killed in battle, whose names were then read out.

Cllr Benn Minshall, who read a description of the battle on Friday night and a list of names on Saturday, said: “It was quite moving, to be honest. The reading of the names was quite a powerful thing.

“It’s one of the most crucial points in history, so it was only right that we recognised it. You think about the sorts of things that these men went into it for – the justice, liberty, even personal freedom.

“It’s also important that the kids know about these things. In school they will get a snapshot and I think it can’t do any harm to stress just how important the battle was.”

Remembrance events carried over into Saturday, with a music, film and drama production held at the Crewe Lyceum Theatre to commemorate the battle.

Over one million men were killed or wounded in the battle, which began on July 5, 1916 and lasted for four and a half months. The allied forces gained five miles of ground during this time.