by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest
THE Headland at Hartlepool is an exposed place, jutting defiantly into the biting wind blowing off the North Sea. There are long views through white-capped waves down south to Saltburn and up north to Seaham, but today the binoculars chained to the viewing area in the...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, Scarborough
CHRIS LLOYD tells of the events 100 years ago that literally rocked the nation – the bombardment of the East Coast by German Warships. WHY? PRIMARILY, the Germans wanted to draw sections of the British fleet into the open sea where they hoped to destroy them,...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest
The voice of a First World War soldier, left for us from beyond the grave, has been found on tape in the home of a writer in the region. Chris Webber heard the old soldier and Communist tell his own story. THE words of old soldier Frank Feeney, unheard for 40 years,...
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, Stockton, Thirsk, War Stories
THIRLBY is a little village to the east of Thirsk, which sits in the shadow of the Cleveland Hills as they rise up to the North York Moors. It has an old Scandinavian place name, like so many villages scattered across North Yorkshire and Cleveland. These names follow...
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, Stockton, War Stories
THIS splendid picture of a First World War steamer is one of the many curiosities that will be for sale at Darlington Book Fair next weekend. It shows SS Maltby, and it was painted by an unknown crew member – his squiggly signature is illegible in the bottom left hand...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
Touching, handwritten messages and drawings from First World War soldiers, many of whom were killed, have been discovered in Hartlepool. Chris Webber reports. DEEP in the pages of a fragile, 100-year-old book compiled by Private William Tucker, are two pressed...
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
Early morning on December 16, 1914, Mary Stainthorpe, 13, was among an excited hubbub of children boarding their usual train taking them from their colliery homes in Durham to their grammar school at the coast. ONLY that morning the train didn’t take them to school in...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest
A MYSTERY object from the First World War has come to light. What appears to be a grave marker relating to the so-called Old Contemptibles who were regular soldiers involved in early battles in the war, has been handed in to the Heugh Battery Museum in Hartlepool. The...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Darlington, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest
THE sights and sounds of the First World War were brought back to life at the weekend. A living history group evoked the misery of life in the trenches for Darlington residents when they visited the town on Saturday. The Time Bandits, a historical interpretation...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest
LIFE in the trenches of the First World War has been dramatically brought to life to give people first-hand experience of the misery troops faced. The Time Bandits, a group providing historical interpretation and living history and drama, will travel with the trench,...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Darlington, Hartlepool, In Your Town, Latest, Middlesbrough, Redcar, Stockton
ONE hundred years after the start of the First World War, a 400,000 project will remind residents of the Tees Valley of the sacrifice made by their forebears. The programme, funded with money from the Arts Council, runs until March next year throughout Darlington,...
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, Hartlepool Bombardments, In Your Town, War Stories
Lawrence Reeve sat down to breakfast with his wife Martha and their four children. It was 8am. Lawrence was second-in-command of the War Signal Station at Castle Hill, Scarborough, and had just finished his night duty. It had probably been uneventful. It was 1914 and...
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, Hartlepool Bombardments, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
In December 1914, the horror of the First World War was visited on three North-East coastal towns in a naval bombardment which lasted less than an hour but which awoke an enduring British fighting spirit. Chris Lloyd reports. IT was a misty morning. Grey and dank....
by Chris Lloyd | Hartlepool, Hartlepool Bombardments, In Your Town, War Stories
ARTHUR Rodgers was there, 92 years ago, when time stopped. “I do remember this, ” he says. “It was near Christmas. There was a lady running away with a cat under one arm and a Christmas cake under the other. I’ve never forgotten that.”...
