THE TRAGIC tale of nine men from one street who died during the First World War is being researched by Keighley historians.

The Men of Worth Project hopes to uncover the full truth of the Parkwood soldiers mentioned in a single line in the Keighley News of December 2, 1916.

The volunteer historians suspect two of the dead men could be William Bottomley and Herbert Lake who were both members of the Parkwood Football Club.

Men of Worth volunteer Andy Wade has so far found five war victims who lived on Belle Vue Terrace in Parkwood.

He said: “That's still a work in progress until we prove this was the street. William and Herbert didn't live on Belle Vue Terrace.

“It could have been another street in Parkwood or it could just refer to ‘Parkwood Street’ as Belle Vue Terrace does run off it.”

William, known to friends and army comrades as Billie Bott, was highlighted in last week’s Keighley News in the weekly Men of Worth column.

In the column we mistakenly said he and Herbert Lake were brothers after misreading a cutting of their joint obituary in the Keighley News of September 30, 1916.

William, whose family home was in Parkwood Street, was a shoemaker with Hall and Stells who had been sent to the front line in France in 1915.

Late that year was hit by a rifle bullet, and the following summer, back in France after treatment, he was killed by a shell.

Like William, blacksmith Herbert Lake, of nearby Carlisle Street, had signed up before the war with the Keighley Territorials.

Andy Wade, one of the founders of Men of Worth Project, said Billie Bott was clearly popular as a great sportsman and proper team player.

Mr Wade said: “It's not a nickname originating from ridicule, but one of affection, achieved through friendship and respect.

“He was 'Billie Bott’ in his life here, in his Army life, and he's still ‘Billie Bott' even today because every visitor to his grave will see that on the family inscription.

“I liked him straight away as soon as I read his nickname in the Keighley News. It fires my imagination about this lad because you just know he would have been a tremendous character.

“He's the only man I have seen that has such a nickname in all of the hundreds of men we've researched. I reckon he was the centre of attention in most of the things he did.”

Mr Wade wonders whether any Keighley News readers can recognise Herbert Lake in the football team photograph, possibly the first man on the left in the centre row.