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from Manchester Evening News,
Tuesday April 20, 1999
 Last post for Somme hero Mike
BY IAN MARROW
FIRST World War hero Mike Lally has died aged 104.
One of the last of the "Old Contemptibles," Queen
Victoria was still on the throne when Mr Lally was born in 1894.
He survived the killing fields of France and along with a
handful of other veterans was presented with the Legion d'Honneur — France's highest
award — in a recent ceremony at Manchester Town Hall.
"He was a wonderful old chap and will be greatly missed,"
said a spokesman for Thornlea Rest Home in Blackley, where he spent his last seven years..
Born in Oldham Road, Collyhurst, Mr Lally was brought up in a family
of eight children in Cheetham.
He joined the Manchester Regiment as a band boy in 1910 and went to
France as a member of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
Surviving the Somme and going over the top on the first day of the
battle of Passchendaele, he was wounded in the Big Push of 1918 but stayed in the Army for
another 10 years as a drill sergeant.
Requiem Mass is to be held tomorrow at St Dunstan's RC Church,
Moston, followed by interment at St Joseph's Cemetery, Moston.
He leaves a daughter Cecilia, sons Michael and John, 10
grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
 A
newspaper feature about Mike Lally The Great Survivor appeared
last year, and he was pictured at (sadly) his last Remembrance Day ceremony in Homage is paid to dwindling band of veterans.
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