A concert including music by composers on both sides who died in the Great War, will be held on Armistice Day, Sunday, November 11 at Saffron Hall. There will also be readings of letters of Private Albert Bromfield, the conductor Richard Hull’s great grandfather who served at Passchendaele.

A concert including music by composers on both sides who died in the Great War, will be held on Armistice Day, November 11, at Saffron Hall.

The Armistice Day Concert will also have readings of letters from Private Albert Bromfield, the grandfather of the concert conductor, Richard Hull.

Albert, from Bedfordshire, was gassed at Passchendaele but survived the war.

He was sent to France with the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, leaving behind his young wife Ada, pregnant with their first child.

He saw action across northern France and Flanders, and after Passchendaele returned to the front line in the summer of 1918. He finally returned home in February 1919.

Mr Hull said: “My great grandfather sent over 100 letters to his wife, Ada.

“They are chatty, intimate letters, in which he talks about the weather, his mates, the pleasure of receiving parcels, and his longing to return home and see his new baby daughter. Ada kept all the letters.”

The concert, in association with the Saffron Walden branch of the United Nations Association, will start with Rudi Stephan’s Musik für Orchester.

Stephan was a German composer of great promise, who was considered to be one of the leading talents among his generation.

He was killed by a bullet in the brain fired by a Russian sharpshooter on September 29, 1915, aged 28.

This piece will be followed by Frederick Kelly’s Elegy for Strings.

Kelly was a musician and composer of Australian/British dual nationality in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve of the Royal Naval Division.

The Elegy was composed in memory of the poet Rupert Brooke who died in service.

It was written by Kelly in his tent at his base camp in Gallipoli. He was subsequently killed in action.

The Pastoral Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams (who survived the conflict) was written immediately after the war, inspired by the fields of France where he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Tickets, £18, £15 and £3 for under 18s, from 0845 548 7650 or www.saffronhall.com or Saffron Walden Tourist Information 01799 524002.