A memorial bench to three fallen Huddersfield soldiers and three of their comrades has been completely restored in Greenhead Park.

The bench was in memory of the soldiers killed when their armoured fighting vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan on March 6, 2012, the biggest single UK loss of life in the conflict.

It claimed the lives of the six soldiers in the vehicle. They were Yorkshire Regiment soldiers Cpl Jake Hartley, 20, of New Mill; Pte Anton Frampton, 20, of Longwood, and Pte Daniel Wilford, 21, from Cowlersley.

The blast also killed their comrades – Pte Christopher Kershaw, 19, of Bradford and Pte Daniel Wade, 20, from Warrington, who were both in the Yorkshire Regiment, and Sergeant Nigel Coupe, 33, of Lytham St Annes who served with the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

 

 

Top row (from left): Sergeant Nigel Coupe, Corporal Jake Hartley and Private Anthony Frampton. Bottom row (from left): Private Christopher Kershaw, Private Daniel Wade and Private Daniel Wilford. Pictures Iain Hamer, Crown Copyright/MOD 2012.

 

Their families wanted them to be never forgotten so they fundraised for memorial benches to be placed around the country, including one near the war memorial in Greenhead Park.

But a close friend of one of the soldiers’ mums spotted that the bench on the Belvedere path just below the memorial had become very weatherbeaten.

Maggie Burrows grew up on the same Paddock street, Royds Avenue, as Anton’s mum, Margaret Charlesworth, and they have been close friends ever since.

Maggie said: “I do the park run and could see the bench was deteriorating so thought we ought to do something about it.”

She alerted the Friends of Greenhead Park and volunteers Howard Robinson and Jane Emery immediately decided to help and spent almost 20 hours over the summer painstakingly restoring the bench.

Jane said: “The bench was looking very sad but Howard has the expertise, skills and knowledge to fully restore it so it now looks virtually brand new.”

Howard added: “It’s fixed into the ground so we couldn’t shift it and had to do the work there. When we began the wood was absolutely sodden but, luckily, we had some sun in June which dried it out so we could then get to work. It was an absolute privilege to restore the bench for the families.”

 

The memorial bench before and after the refurbishment

 

Jane and Howard first removed lots of moss from the letters and then sanded the bench down which took several hours before Howard gave it a couple of coats of oak varnish.

Margaret said: “Howard and Jane have done an amazing job with the bench and it looks absolutely wonderful. It’s an incredibly kind gesture and I’m overwhelmed.”

The other benches are near Longwood war memorial in honour of Anton, another at the end of Daniel Wilford’s street in Cowlersley, one at Catterick Garrison where the soldiers were based and their remains buried in Catterick cemetery and another at the top of Salisbury Plain where they did their training.

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.

 

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