SHAFESTBURY Boys’ Club, Birkenhead’s leading youth club, played a crucial role in the Great War of 1914-18.

After the war came peace, and remembrance, Shaftesbury commemorated its lost heroes in a ‘Golden Book’.

Shaftesbury remembered their absent friends throughout the war, and honoured the dead when peace, and the battered survivors, returned.

The dead were listed in a remarkable ‘Laurel Roll’ known as the ‘Golden Book’.

Between hand-tooled leather covers, illuminated pages record 73 names, addresses and dates of birth, regiments and the fateful actions in which they lost their lives and where the dead were buried; all in a beautiful cursive script.

It was a professsionally-produced testament to lost youth, conceived with later generations in mind, which more than 90 years on provides a fascinating glimpse back in time.

Writer Mike Simpson turns the pages of history... for the full, remarkable story click here