A WHITEFIELD grandfather is going on a very special pilgrimage when he visits the grave of his cousin who died during the Second World War.

Michael Wyatt is flying out to Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery in February to visit the resting place of Thomas Frederick Challinor for the first time.

The 24-year-old war hero lived in Allen Street, Radcliffe, before being sent to war in October 1939. He was present at the fall of Singapore then captured as a Japanese prisoner of war and forced to complete the Burma railroad.

The brave trooper, who served with 6th Battalion Loyal (North Lancashire Regiment) from October 1939, died a month after the railroad was completed, in Tambaya military hospital on November 6, 1943.

Mr Wyatt will be visiting the cemetery on February 19 with his sister in law Marion Reeve, aged 68.

The grandfather of four, aged 70, said: "Even though I never met him this is something that I have always wanted to do. I have always felt it is my duty to visit him, and now that the opportunity has arisen I am delighted to be able to go. Sadly my wife is unable to go due to ill health, so I am going with her sister.

"In October I went to the national memorial in Staffordshire and saw a photo of the prisoners of war working on the railroad next to some freshly dug graves. I couldn't help but think that one of those was Fred's. I suppose it's natural to think that even though there was no real proof, but it really "

Fred's parents, Thomas and Florence, were only informed that their son was not coming home two years after his death when a fellow POW returned home at the end of the war.

Michael said: "His parents were never the same after finding out that their only son had died.

"Of course I was told all about him and the fact that no one has been able to visit him. Over the years it has become an itch that I have been unable to scratch, especially since last year's centenary of the First World War.

"This is the first time that Freddie will have had a visitor in the time he has been there. I am 70 now and my life is passing me by so I decided that I wanted to go and stand at his grave and say, 'Hi Fred, I am here after all these years.' It will be a real pilgrimage."