PEOPLE named on Dover’s War Memorial are no longer just names, thanks to the Dover War Memorial Project.

The project has now been officially launched with a booklet, recording the research carried out by Maggie Stephenson-Knight and Simon Chambers.

The booklet, called We Remember, has been produced by the Kent Messenger Group and is free with the current edition of the Dover Mercury.

Some people at the town council event were not even born when their fathers, or uncles died in wartime. They now feel they know relatives who were previously a mystery to them.

Irene Hedgecock, 89, was about to be born when her father, Joseph Thompson, died in the First World War, in 1917.

A special poster of Mr Thompson, who lived in Pioneer Road, featured on the display. He was a chief petty officer aboard the destroyer HMS Laforey and was patrolling the North Sea and Strait of Dover. In 1917, the ship was lost when it hit a mine.

Mrs Hedgecock said: “I was born two weeks after he died. I never knew my father, but this has brought all these memories of him out.”

Frederick Brading last saw his brother Charles in Malta in 1943. Charles was killed when his destroyer struck a mine.

Mr Brading said: “That week we had in Malta, was the nicest memory I have of Charles.”

Father and daughter Edwin and Judy Hart travelled from Thanet to be at the launch. The booklet details the story of Judy’s uncle Horace Abbott, who was killed in 1943, in Italy.

Mrs Hart said: “Horace was killed 12 months after I was born. This project has been so good as I have no family, so when we are gone, the booklet and project will contain a little piece of us.”

The project was launched by the town council on Remembrance Sunday last year to give Remembrance Sunday 2006 more significance.

A museum in the Belgian town of Ypres, called In Flanders Fields Museum, has collaborated on the project.

Information has been shared between the museum and the council and there are plans to stage exhibitions on the information uncovered.

Major Paul Morris, of 2 Infantry Brigade said: “It is easy to focus on the military, internationally today, but it is so important not to forget the military of the past. It is fantastic to see how the community has come together to work on this project.”