A PROJECT based on an old copy of the Bolton Journal listing casualties from the First World War has been given a major funding boost.

Bolton charity Diversity in Barrier-Breaking Communications (DBBC) has been awarded £9,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project aimed at helping young people trace the descendants of soldiers from the borough who were killed in the Gallipoli campaign.

Dorothy Martland MBE, founder and voluntary chief executive of DBBC, said: “We are thrilled to have received the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and many young people in Bolton will be able to remember Bolton’s past heroes with pride.”

The project was born when members of the New Street charity — which helps build confidence and self-esteem through radio training — discovered a pullout from the Bolton Journal dating back to 1916. It contained the photographs of the 800 men from Bolton killed in the first two years of the First World War plus their names and the streets where they lived.

The new project will see up to 30 young people researching families who had relatives killed at Gallipoli — the site of a First World War campaign in which the allies suffered a major defeat against the Ottoman Empire in Turkey.

The project is intended to mark the centenary of the First World War and the group will investigate the lives of the soldiers before they joined up and the impact it had on families and the stories and memories that have been handed down. Their stories will be recorded on to CD and an online archive will be created that everyone will be able to access and to contribute information.

A spokeswoman for DBBC said: “When it was shown to our students they were shocked and intrigued and wanted to know more.

“Over the next 12 months they will, with the help of a consultant, put together a worthy documented history to honour these young heroes.

“These soldiers were so young and it is only right that today’s young people pay tribute to them.”