A BIRTHDAY treat aided by some eagle-eyed detective work has helped boost a centenary exhibition of cricket connections to the First World War.

Researcher Louise Perrin, who is putting together the display for the Somerset Cricket Museum, at Taunton’s County Ground was being taken out for lunch in Topsham on her birthday by her husband.

The couple, from Wellington, dropped by an antiques centre, where Louise was drawn to two war medals.

She said: “I looked closer and there on the label was the name Len Braund. I opened the plastic wallet they were in to have a closer look - and it said Private L. Braund, RAMC 80848.”

Louise checked with the cricket museum that it was the same Len Braund who played for Somerset and England either side of the conflict, and then snapped them up for the exhibition.

He enlisted for service in the Great War in October 1915 aged 40 and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps until the end of the hostilities, when he resumed his cricket career.