Eighty-seven years ago, in the middle of World War 1, on July 1st 1916, 2000 young men from Bradford left their trenches in Northern France to advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

In 1974 a BBC North crew accompanied some of the surviving Bradford Pals on what was to be their last trip back to the Somme.

A Bradford Pal remembers the opening hours of the Battle of the Somme:

Half-past seven in the morning on the first of July 1916, and the whistles were blowing and the shells were coming over, and it was hell upon earth, and everybody dashed out of the trenches and everybody was doing the best they could. It was the machine gun fire that caused all the damage. It wasn't the shell fire. And there were no gaps in the wire emplacements and we had to find the best way we could, you see. The other battalion had come over before us. There were so many dead laying about and it was almost impossible because the other battalion had come over before us. There were so many dead lying about scattered all over the place. I was a member of the 18th West Yorkshires, 2nd Bradford Pals, on that particular day and out of the battalion strength of 800 there were only 147 left at the end of the day.