A ‘BLIGHTY one’ brought Cross Roads soldier Samuel Elimeleck Williams home to his wife and children in 1917.

Private Williams had already survived more than year in France before he was wounded and sent home to Britain.

He was discharged from the Army in January 1917, no longer physically fit for war service, but it’s unknown whether he returned to his peacetime job of labourer with a machine tool manufacturer.

Samuel was born in Carnforth, Lancashire, in 1888 and by the age of 12 was living with his parents and siblings in Haworth.

In 1907 the warp cutter married fellow 19-year-old Sophie Nixon, from Cross Roads, and he moved across the valley to that village.

By the time Samuel enlisted in the Army in September 1914 he had two young children, Nellie and William, though another child had died. A month later son Rennie was born.

In France by late summer 1915, Samuel served with the West Riding Regiment in various war zones, including Albert, Ypres, Outersteen and the Bois Grenier Line.

Just over a year after Samuel returned home, another daughter Betty was born, with Sophia living until 1941 and Samuel dying 10 years later, aged 63, while living in Parkwood.