Birkenhead YMCA has played a leading role in supporting and helping the UK's first permanent exhibition commemorating war poet Wilfred Owen open on Merseyside.

Wilfred Owen lived in Birkenhead between the ages of 4 and 14, attending the Birkenhead Institute.

He was tragically killed a week before Armistice Day, but became one of the most celebrated of the war poets and is widely studied to this day.

The opening of the exhibition took place on 18th March – Owen's birthday, when the highly popular Mayor of Wirral Cllr Alan Jennings performed the opening ceremony at a packed out venue.

The gallery focuses on the importance of Owens formative years in the town and there was plenty of debate as to whether he may have even visited the old Birkenhead YMCA in Grange Road. The Wilfred Owen Story will also host exhibitions of local artists work and pride of place at the official opening was given to talented YMCA resident George Gardner's colourful abstract artwork.

The man behind the project is singer-songwriter Dean Johnson, also a former pupil of Birkenhead Institute, who feels that a permanent reminder of this great English poet's relationship with Birkenhead is long overdue.

Dean commented "The ethos of the Wilfred Owen Story is for individuals to find their own voice and use it to the same cathartic effect, in the same way as Owen used his".

"The involvement of the Birkenhead YMCA fits perfectly with this, and our first guest artist is George Gardner, whose work is simply outstanding; a true original".