Hundreds of veterans, cadets, relatives and community leaders paid their respects to the Accrington Pals at a church service.

It marked 101st anniversary of the Valedictory Service held before the brave battalion marched off to fight in the First World War.

The poignant service held at St John’s Church in Accrington commemorated their sacrifices and included relatives and descendants of soldiers who fought and died.

The Pals, from the 11th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment, were deployed to Egypt before sailing to Marseille in France.

They later saw action at the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 2016 where they suffered hundreds of casualties.

Captain Shelley Whitehead, of the Lancashire Army Cadet Force, said they want to try and ‘keep the memory of the Pals alive’ for a new generation.

She said: “We tried to commemorate when they went out to Egypt after sailing out from the UK in December 1915.

“We did a bit of a re-enactment where were read out letters from home and the Cadets were heavily involved in the service so we got a lot of young people involved.

“It’s just a matter of trying to keep their memory alive and making sure people understand they were people and not just numbers.

“We commemorated everybody who had been killed in training and the one’s who lost their lives either on their way to Egypt or in Egypt.”

Capt Whitehead said many civic and military dignitaries attended the service on Sunday, February 21, including representatives of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

She said: “The Cadets did a parade up from their detachment which they do every year. It was a short parade which just adds a little bit to the ceremony.

“We used the Pals chapel a lot during the church service and it acted as a focus and we try to get different people to do different things each year.

“It is a community thing as the Pals came from the locality and it’s important everybody does something who is part of that locality.”