by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Latest, York
CARTOONS created by a soldier as he served on the Western Front are revealing more of the dark humour of the First World War. The sketches were drawn by Albert E V Richards, who is thought to have served with the 10th Royal Hussars as a lance corporal. Drawn...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Darlington, Ferryhill, In Your Town, Latest
THE centenary of the First World War has inspired an Army reservist to transform a short story he wrote for a competition 15 years ago into a novel. Steven Corner was awarded third place in the Sid Chaplain short story competition run by Shildon Town Council when he...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Consett, In Your Town, Latest
JIM Clarke vividly recalls how, as a young orphan, he buffed up a brass plaque taking pride of place in a children’s home. At the time it was just another thing he had to shine and he little realised its significance – as a roll of honour listing the names...
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 | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Stockton
CHILDREN of all ages have remembered their town’s First World War dead in a special event. The children planted sunflowers at Stockton’s Castlegate Centre as part of a bigger commemoration called the Sunflower Project. The project remembers the 1,245 soldiers from...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Saltburn
THOUSANDS of people flocked to the seaside yesterday to watch an unusual game of football organised to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Players were cheered onto the makeshift pitch by the enthusiastic fans as they emerged from the trenches...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Saltburn
THE finishing touches are being applied to the recreation of an iconic football match that broke out on Western Front during the First World War. On Sunday, Saltburn beach will become the pitch for British and German soldiers who put down their weapons and played...
by Chris Lloyd | Diary of Gunner George James, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
IN Memories 175, we left Gunner George James enduring heavy shellfire in the trenches near Ypres, in 1916. George, a miner from Littletown, near Durham City, was 21, and serving in the Royal Field Artillery. We’ve been following his fortunes all year, seeing how...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Latest, Stokesley
AN EXHIBITION on the enormous impact of the First World War on Stokesley has drawn in visitors from across the North. Generations of families, from primary school pupils to great-grandparents, were involved in the Stokesley and the Great War exhibition, which charted...
by Chris Lloyd | In Your Town, Latest, People, Stockton
ON AUGUST 4, 1914, the Germans invaded Belgium, dragging Britain into the First World War. Third Engineer Algernon Wilkinson was also approaching Belgium, on board SS Seapool, which was part of “Ropner’s little navy”. With the enemy invaders only 80 miles away, the...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Sedgefield
AN amateur dramatics society will commemorate the centenary of the First World War with a spectacular showcase of words, music, drama and dance. Sedgefield Players’ Not in Sorrow, But in Pride will feature two one-act plays, trench songs, traditional dance and...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Stockton
A GOVERNMENT minister has show his support for a creative project to commemorate the 1,245 Stockton residents who gave up their lives during the First World War. The sunflower project is encouraging people to plant a seed in memory of one of the soldiers before they...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
IN Memories 173, (published in The Northern Echo every Saturday) we told of the VAD – Voluntary Aid Detachment – nurses who ran convalescent hospitals for injured soldiers. Brenda Wright, of Darlington, has discovered this magnificent picture of all the town’s...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Crook, In Your Town, Latest
SERGEANT JAMES GRAHAM performed some extremely brave deeds during the First World War. He’d been awarded the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and he had been mentioned in despatches. But his family did not know why. Over the course of the last one hundred...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Stokesley
SCHOOLS and history groups have pulled together to create an exhibition detailing the enormous impact of the First World War on a North Yorkshire town. To mark the centenary of the war, an exhibition is to be held at Stokesley town hall on Friday, May 16 and Saturday,...
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 | Bishop Auckland, In Your Town, Latest, People
AT 12.35pm on Monday, March 1, 1915, a train departed from Grimsby station carrying new recruits to join the army. Undoubtedly, tearful wives and girlfriends waved hankies at the train until it disappeared into the distance, taking away the men they knew might never...
by Chris Lloyd | Diary of Gunner George James, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
GUNNER George James spent Easter 1916 in the trenches near Ypres, but his mind was on the traditional ceremonies that he knew would be unfolding in the Methodist chapel in his home village of Littletown, in County Durham. Easter would have been very important to...
by Chris Lloyd | Diary of Gunner George James, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
NINETY-EIGHT years ago, our diarist, Gunner George James, was in the midst of one of the muddiest encounters of the First World War. At 4.15am, on March 27, 1916, at St Eloi, about ten miles south of Ypres, the British detonated six large mines which they had...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
THIS is a story of some nurses and a spoon. The nurses were undoubtedly heroic, but the spoon is truly splendid. More than a teaspoon, it is a proper tablespoon, made of the finest Sheffield steel. Stamped on its handle, is its owner’s number – SG 16170 – and, just...
