THE Lion Salt Works Museum will launch a poignant First World War exhibition this month.

'Letters Home – Communications on the Front' will put on show letters sent home to Cheshire from the trenches, generously donated by soldiers' families.

To mark the opening on Saturday, July 20, there will be a free talk about the exhibition and museum tour from 2pm to 3.30pm, given by curator and award-winning volunteer Nigel Meyrick.

The exhibition itself runs to November 16.

Nigel said: “It is an intensely personal experience reading another person’s first-hand account of the First World War.

"You realise afresh that each person caught up in the war was someone just like us and this is particularly humbling when, from our viewpoint in history, we know the huge personal sacrifices that were made by this generation.

“My interest in the War stems from my wife’s great-grandfather, an artillery gunner who died in the infamous Battle of Passchendaele.

"The family still treasures the bible that was sent home after his death containing a pressed flower from his from his wife’s wedding bouquet and a paper leaf from their wedding cake.

"Earlier this year this bible was featured on ‘Antiques Road Show’.”

The exhibition is based on letters, postcards and personal items. For four years, a series of First World War roadshows across Cheshire has unearthed letters and memorabilia that brings to life the human stories of the battlefront.

These items are presented alongside unseen material from private collections, including material translated from French Welsh and Suetterlin – a form of early German.

Cllr Louise Gittins, cabinet member for communities and wellbeing at Cheshire West and Chester Council, said: “I am enormously grateful to Nigel Meyrick for organising and curating this exhibition and to everyone who has helped, loaned or donated material.

"In the centenary year of the end of the First World War, this is an important exhibition that reminds us of the sacrifice, hope and resilience of this war-time generation.

"Many of these items will never be displayed or brought together again.

"This is a fascinating and unrepeatable insight into history and even after a hundred years, the voices from history can be heard loud and clear.”