THE family of a young man who served in the Second World War have shared a poem he wrote before he was killed.

Francis Rigby was one of the fallen heroes who died in Palestine on boxing day 1946.

He lived on Clyde Street and served with the 253 Field Company Royal Engineers.

Francis, who died at the age of 25, was killed in a motor accident in the Middle East.

Prior to his journey to Palestine, he had survived the terrors in Dunkirk.

Before his time serving in the war, Francis was also a joiner and had a wife and child.

His family have kept a poem he wrote during war and has wished to share it on Remembrance Sunday.

READ > Six of the best Remembrance tributes as St Helens honours the fallen

The poem reads:

Neath the poppy fields of Flanders there’s a stirring in the dawn,

a restless night gives birth unto a worldwide troubled mourn,

there’s a murmuring of awakening in the legions of the slain,

as that dreamless sleep is broken by the call to arms again.

 

To arms again is this the peace for which we though we’d died?

but this we know no fault is yours against all odds you tried,

this is not a war for glory and the pageantry of song,

but a nation’s solid stand against a world devouring wrong.

 

So take your stand my comrades, you will not fight alone,

once more they journey over the seas to make your cause their own,

and we, we will be watching though the ways between are wide,

and our eyes they shall not see us we’ll be fighting by your side.