History features

1918-2008: Ninety Years of Remembrance

1918-2008: Ninety Years of Remembrance is a BBC campaign to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Armistice, running in the days leading up to 11th November 1918.

With the aim of personalising the act of remembrance and bringing World War One vividly alive in the present, it will encourage individuals and families to look into the stories of their relatives that lived in the First World War through a variety of activities.

Remembrance events

• WW1 display, Kendal Library, 3-21 November
• WW1 Display, Barrow Library, throughout November
• All four Record Offices – Carlisle, Barrow, Kendal and Whitehaven – will have a WW1 display, using archival material of the time, running in November.

Screen grab from BBC News website

Veteran's life in his own words

Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski - known as George - was a Polish army veteran who'd lived in Sedbergh until ill-health forced him to move to a nursing home in Grange-over-Sands.

He died in Cumbria at the age of 111 and was thought to have been Britain's oldest man at the time of his death.

The former colonel was called up to the Austrian Infantry in 1915.

He was born in Lwow, a major city in what is now western Ukraine, and moved to Sedbergh in 1993.

In 2005, BBC News published extracts from his self-penned life story, and we've created a timeline of his life events here.

Born on 19 July 1894 in Lwów which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Went to Vienna in 1914 and was called up to the Austrian Infantry in 1915.

Trained in Hungary and Bosnia.

Courtesy of BFI National Archive

Went to Montenegro and Albania as a sergeant in 1918, fighting against the Italinas.

Unit transferred to Northern Italy in 1918

Captured by Italian cavalry in the last hours of World War 1 and became a prisoner of war.

He was freed at Christmas 1918 and was then sent to France.

You can read more about the life of Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski on the BBC News website.