AS Sunday’s Armistice Day approaches, Ludlow Hockey Club has retold the story of a school team who went on to serve their country in the Great War – one of them making the ultimate sacrifice.

The members of Ludlow Grammar School’s first hockey team, who beat all-comers in five friendlies in 1913, would be decorated with three Military Cross medals, one with bar; plus a Distinguished service cross with bar, the Greek Military Cross and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Of the players pictured, Tom Mellings – who received the final three honours above – left school at 1915, and by September 1916 was serving as a pilot with the 2 Naval Wing of the Royal Naval Air Service in the Eastern Mediterranean. Transferred to the Western Front in a Sopwith Camel, the young son of a Bromfield Farming Family was injured but returned to the skies as part of the newly-formed RAF in 1918. On July 22, he was shot down by Lieutenant Lutz Beckman and rests in a military cemetery near Ostend.

All Mellings’ teammates served, with Edward Goodwin and Harold Farmer receiving the Military Cross, the latter’s with bar, as artillery officers. Robert Munn received the Military Cross after being commissioned into the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and then being attached to the Machine Gun Corps.

Harry Mantle and Harold Warburton also served in the light infantry, surviving the conflict unscathed, but AN Scriviner and John Middle were wounded in action, serving with the Machine Gun Corps and Royal Welsh Fusiliers, respectively.

Humphrey Butters returned to help the school’s cadets after being invalided out of duties as a subaltern in the Lancashire Fusiliers and Robert Melsome was invalided out with shellshock after almost being buried by an aerial torpedo while serving with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

John Goodall served with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

We will remember them.