KEIGHLEY-born Alfred Lewis Slater was a printer’s apprentice when he signed up to fight in the First World War.

The 19-year-old was living with his parents in Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, when he answered the call to arms in spring 1916.

Just over a year later he was dead, most likely as a result of heavy shelling on August 14 when he was in a frontline trench.

Alfred spent only a couple of years in Keighley before his engineer father Smith moved to Nottinghamshire with his wife Annie to become a die fitter and turner.

Alfred grew up in Sutton in Ashfield with his parents, becoming a draper’s errand boy by the age of 14.

He served with the South Staffordshire Regiment, later the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

Only a few days before his death Alfred’s company was sent away from the front lines to train, but due to heavy rain spent their time cleaning the camp of mud and water.

Returning to the front on August 12, the men were deployed in various parts of the forest area in the Widjendrift sector.

The following day the German sent gas shells into the woods, and on August 14 itself the area was “heavily shelled all round” with six men including Alfred killed, a further 21 wounded and one going missing.