A SOLDIER from Oxenhope survived the First World War, despite being shot in the head while helping to assault German positions on the Western Front.

Frank Robertshaw, of the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment, was injured at Marcoing in Northern France in September 1918.

He was born into a family employed in the textile trade in Oxenhope and was himself employed as a jobber then a wool sorter in a mill.

He was married at 28, shortly after the outbreak of the war, and enlisted in the army in late 1915.

Mr Robertshaw was posted to France in May 1917 and appointed lance corporal in August of that year.

On September 27 1918 his battalion advanced to take part in an attack on enemy trenches at Marcoing but faced heavy resistance. It was during this attack that the Oxenhope resident nearly lost his life.

The British lost a total of 237 men killed and wounded in the battle.

Mr Robertshaw was admitted to a field ambulance, then to hospital. A brief note from the Keighley News in early October 1918 simply states that he had written to his wife saying he was wounded and in hospital, but did not explain the extent of his wounds.

He did not return to his regiment until March 1919, after the Armistice had been signed, and was demobilised to the Reserves in October 1919. He continued to live in the Keighley area after the war, dying aged 51 in 1937.