SUTTON couple William and Elizabeth Smith received a letter from the army on June 8, 1917, telling them their son was missing in action.

Gordon, 21, was serving “somewhere in France” with the Leicester Regiment and had gone missing five days previously during the Battle of Arras.

Gordon was born in Kildwick in 1896, but spent most of his childhood in Sutton, where as a teenager he started work in the textile design Department of T & M Bairstow’s in Sutton Mills.

Well-known in the village, he was a “remarkably sharp lad” who served as a teacher with the juniors at Sutton Baptist Sunday School and himself attended Keighley Trade and Grammar School.

On the outbreak of the First World War, Gordon took up a position in the office of his uncle, a well-known timber merchant in Nelson, then signed up for the Lancashire Fusiliers that September.

Following basic training he was one of six men chosen to become drill instructors, but before finishing their training the men were transferred to bring the main regiment up to strength when it went to France.

In March 1918 the army officially classified Gordon as dead.