CHILDREN planning a pilgrimage to remember the war dead are appealing to people to come forward with names.

Pupils at Kelsey Park School, in Manor Way, Beckenham, will visit sites across France next month, paying homage to soldiers from Bromley who died in World War Two.

Names of local soldiers have flooded in - including 52 from the Shortlands area alone - but as Poppy Day nears, the rush is on to complete the list.

Teacher Martin Wheeler has visited the Imperial War Museum, London, in a painstaking bid to track names of soldiers who went to school in Bromley.

History teacher Damian Lamb said: "Mr Wheeler's done a great job.

"We particularly want names of people who went to Bromley schools, but it's proved a difficult task."

Heroes rediscovered include Second Lieutenant John Gurney, from Overbury Avenue, Beckenham, who died, aged 27, on September 21, 1917 at Ypres, and a Lieutenant Bartlet, who lived in Bromley, and was killed by a hand grenade at the Somme, 1916.

The children will lay a wreath at Thiepval - where 72,000 names are listed of soldiers whose bodies were never recovered. Kelsey Park School would like to thank Orpington Rotary Club for a £200 donation to help fund the trip. Anyone with names to be remembered on the children's wreath should call Kelsey Park on 0181 650 8694.

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