WORTH Valley grocer Alfred Firth was in and out of hospital for his entire army service – but at least he survived the First World War.

When war broke out Alfred was working at the Co-operative store in Haworth while living in the village with wife Ada and daughter Kathlyn.

Born in Cross Roads in 1885, he had become a grocer’s boy at the age of 15 and over the next decade progressing in the trade.

Alfred attested to the army in late 1915, at the age of 30, and 14 months later was sent to France to serve with the South Staffordshire Regiment at Beaumarais.

Exactly two months later he was taken to a casualty clearing station, possibly with trench foot, and soon after his return to the front lines received a gunshot wound to his foot.

That autumn, less than a month after doing to France, he suffered a pyrexia fever followed by a bout of trench fever. Returning

Alfred was sent back to England again, making a final return to France in October 1918 just three weeks before the war ended.

Alfred died in 1957, at the age of 71, leaving £818 to his married daughter Kathlyn.