THE subject for the January meeting was Wiltshire Soldiers in The Great War by Richard Broadhead.

Richard's aim is to create a website to list every Wiltshire person to have lost their lives in the war, who were either born or died in the county.

He would also like to put a story to each face.

Richard said that the uptake for the call for recruits at the outbreak of war was so great that there was a shortage of housing.

This meant housing up to 16 men to a tent, outbreaks of disease leading to many dying before taking part in any kind of warfare.

Their graves can be found in many Salisbury Plain villages.

He showed his audience where the battles took place in France and further afield and the conditions endured by the troops.

The effects of gas used by the Germans was reduced by improvements in the respirators used. The British also resorted to using gas.

He went on to name some citizens of Whiteparish who took part in the First World War: William Elkins, Alfred Stone and Walter Stride who lost their lives and Edward Fuller who survived, but was to drown tragically in a pond in 1919.

Richard ended on a sombre note by telling of the vast cost of the war in both lives and money.

Questions and answers followed before Steve Karmy proposed a vote of thanks.

The next meeting will be at the Memorial Centre at 7.30pm on February 19, when the subject will be Operations Nightingale and Florence by Laura Joyner.