A FORMER Territorial Army Officer’s drawing of two soldiers in The Somme reading a 1916 copy of The Shuttle is being sold to raise cash for a war graves charity.

Steve Yapp’s artwork originally accompanied a collection of poems penned by Wyre Forest soldiers on the Western Front in the First World War.

Kidderminster Voices in Verse from The Great War, compiled by former district nurse Ruth Butler, featured poems originally published in The Shuttle during the conflict.

The picture, which adorned the book’s cover, showed “a normal moment of reading a paper in an extraordinary situation”, Mr Yapp said.

He went on: “I drew the illustration in pencil in memory of two family members. My great uncle Thomas Roocroft served with the King’s Own Royal Lancasters and, sadly, he died in the attack on Serre.

“My grandfather, Horace Purkiss, was a driver with the Army Service Corps and volunteered for the Old Contemptibles in 1914 - he survived the Battle of Mons and indeed the war, though I never had chance to meet him.

“I’ve got no photos of them so I drew them the way I see them in my mind but also in a way that could represent all the men that went out there.”

A standard bearer for the Kidderminster branch of the Royal British Legion, Mr Yapp now works as a police officer in the town, having served as a lieutenant in the TA.

Money from sales of the artwork will go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which aims to commemorate everyone who dies in war with a name on a headstone or memorial.

Mr Yapp said it was important to him to raise money for the charity to help people remember family members killed in conflict.

He currently has 150 prints in stock - anyone interested in buying one can email Mr Yapp on yapp_steve@yahoo.co.uk or call him on 07804497390.