A military enthusiast is appealing for help in funding to build a memorial to the former Bedfordshire Regiment in Belgium.
Ian Mould has already built the replica of the memorial, but he is now planning on building the real thing in Belgium next year to celebrate 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War.
Ian is now appealing for help in raising £5,000 to build the memorial.
The 45-year-old said: “I’ve always been interested in the war and I always used to go to the remembrance services when I was a young boy. I remember sitting there and reading all of the names on the memorials and I couldn’t believe how many had died in the war.
“Many men from the Leighton Buzzard area fought in that conflict with the Bedfords and though by no means all were killed, many returned either physically or mentally injured .
“I really wanted to do something to remember the people in the Bedfordshire Regiment because there is nothing to remember them by.
“You feel that their lives were lost for nothing, and their names have just been forgotten.”
Ian has been researching the soldiers who died in the Bedfordshire Regiment since October last year, and he has been working with local author Steven Fuller who has written a book on the regiment.
The 6ft memorial will stand at Tynecot British Cemetery in Belgium. The memorial will read: “In memory of those officers and men of the Bedfordshire Regiment who fought in the Great War 1914-1919. Let those who come after see that their names are not forgotten.”
The Bedfordshire Regiment became the Beds and Herts Regiment in 1919.
Materials for the memorial have been donated by companies Wrighton and Barker and Fendine Ltd. To find out more see bedsregtmem.co.uk.