EXACTLY 100 years ago next week, 19,240 Allied soldiers were killed in four hours on the bloodiest day in British military history.

And in a studio deep in the West Somerset countryside, artist and woodworker Rob Heard has spent the last three years of his life making sure that every one of them will be remembered.

Fifty-year-old Rob has no military background. He is not exactly sure what originally triggered off his compulsion to take on the staggering task of making 12-inch shroud-wrapped figures which represent every Allied victim of the first day of the World War One Battle of the Somme which began on July 1, 1916.

By the time it ended four months later, the death toll from all sides had reached more than a million.

When the Free Press spoke to Rob six months ago, it had begun to look as though completing the task on time was mathematically impossible.

Only 5,000 figures, in their hand-stitched shrouds, had been completed and, with 14,240 to go, Rob was working 12 hours a day, seven days a week in his studio at Bardon near Washford, and obstinately refusing all offers of help.