TWO war memorial benches are to provide a perpetual reminder for 77 fallen missed from all Saltash war memorials.

The benches now take pride of place next to the town’s main war memorials at St Nicholas and St Faith Church.

Blessed as part of the Remembrance Sunday celebrations, the granite benches were organised by Saltash Town Council after a working party of councillors sought a resolution on how to host the missing names.

Following on from the tradition of war memorials being funded by public donations, the town council raised just over £1,000 through a Crowdfunder to go towards the £14,000 needed for the benches. The remainder was paid by the council.

Chair of the working group from Saltash, town councillor Jean Dent has headed up the project over many years, and said: “It’s been a long time coming but it’s very worthwhile. It’s something that we needed to do and we have now succeeded in doing.”

Cllr Richard Bickford added: “A big thank you to Peter Clements for doing all the hard leg work on our behalf collating and finding the unidentified 77 names. Most of this is down to his hard work, and then the town council putting all the complicated bits in place to make sure this has happened.”

Work to uncover the missing names was started by Peter Clements, a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Eyes on Hands On project, as far back as 2016. Over the years he has worked to identify war casualties recorded by the commission yet not recorded on any Saltash memorial.

The list of 77 names verified by the Saltash Town Council war memorial working group is still very much a work in progress. Space remains on the benches for more names to be added.