AN insight into life for Shipley residents during the First World War will be offered through reports from a newspaper published online 100 years on.

Extracts from the Shipley Times and Express will be posted online from this Thursday showing what life was like for people on the Home Front in Shipley and the district during the global conflict.

The updated version will then be published on the website, shipleyww1.org.uk, every Thursday.

Stories will feature the lives of soldiers and their families from a host of areas including Shipley, Clayton, Calverley, Baildon, Wrose, Idle and Eccleshill.

The newspaper will include three pages of stories, including ones on the men serving and the others on events at home, on everyday life between 1914 and 1918.

These will also feature letters from the trenches to the family they left behind at home and what was happening on the Home Front.

The coverage starts with the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Then, each section will be published exactly 100 years after the stories first appeared in print.

The newspaper was usually eight to 12 pages long and will usually result in two or three pages in digest form.

Richard Coomber, 68, of Hirst Wood, Shipley, who has researched and compiled the newspaper, says he wants to focus on the human interest side of the war, as much as the details of the conflict itself.

He said: "It's interesting stuff.

"I have spent the best part of a year working on it so far.

"The pressure for people to volunteer for the war was incredible. There was some amazing stuff in these letters, they are fascinating.

"It's the personal stuff that's much more of interest.

"It just seems a nice way to go to see what was reported 100 years before. There is so much wonderful material. I want to collect together photographs, diaries and stories. I'm hoping to produce a book at the end of it.

"The newspapers were written in the prose of the time. I have re-written them.

"People are finding the website and starting to send me details of their family members. We want to try and get letters together so they are there for future researchers.

"It's going to be a full-time job for almost five years. What amazed me was the number of Belgian refugees who arrived in Bradford on October 15, 1914. There was fundraising for them. People lined the streets to welcome them. "

Mr Coomber is looking for residents to contribute their own wartime artefacts and stories for future editions of the newspaper. For more information, call him on 07977 469210 or e-mail richard.coomber@virginmedia.com