by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Sedgefield
FRIENDSHIPS blossomed at a care home when staff and residents planted sunflowers in memory of soldiers who died in the First World War. Dementia and Alzheimer’s patients at Willowdene Care Home in Sedgefield, County Durham, planted and nurtured the flowers as part of...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Chester-le-Street, In Your Town, Latest
A POP-up exhibition dedicated to the soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry who served in WW1 has opened to mark the conflict’s centenary. Community Service Volunteers (CSV) created the free exhibition, in the main library at Chester-le-Street, County Durham, with the...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Latest
OVER the next four years, the Woodland Trust will be commemorating the centenary of the First World War by planting millions of trees across the country – and you have the chance to create a lasting tribute to a member of your family who sacrificed their life by...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Sedgefield
MOTORCYCLISTS have set off on a pilgrimage to the battlefields of France and Belgium to mark the centenary of the First World War. Members of the Boundary 500 Motorcycle group set off on Saturday after a wreath blessing service at Sedgefield, County Durham. Fifty...
by Chris Lloyd | Harrogate, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
This is the little known story of Prince Charles’s great-aunt, who cared for injured troops in Harrogate during the war. Ruth Campbell talks to the man who uncovered the tale of the caring Russian aristocrat. SHE may have been the daughter of the King of Greece, the...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Darlington, In Your Town, Latest
LESSONS in life in the trenches and wartime medicine replaced maths and English to mark the final week of term at a North-East school. Students at St Aidan’s Academy, in Darlington, dropped their usual lessons and spent a week learning about respect and stewardship...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Newton Aycliffe
A HISTORY society will lead a series of commemorative events to mark the centenary of the First World War following a £10,000 research project. Over the last year, Aycliffe Village Local History Society has been working hard to discover how the Great War affected the...
by Chris Lloyd | Barnard Castle, Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, People
A COMPLETE story can now be told about all 24 postal workers listed on a roll of honour after serving in the First World War. The final one is now known to be Stanley James Clarkson, who was a postman and grocer’s assistant at Cotherstone before going off to the war...
by Chris Lloyd | Barnard Castle, Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Richmond
HUTTON MAGNA is a little place on which the First World War had a big impact. One hundred years ago, it and its neighbour, West Layton, comprised 55 houses. Even in those overcrowded days, the population of the two villages cannot have been more than a few hundred....
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Durham, In Your Town, Latest
A FOUR-YEAR programme of activities to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War is set to be launched. Residents of Belmont are organising a series of events to mark the anniversary, beginning on Friday (July 18) with the launch event First...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Ferryhill, In Your Town, Latest
A YOUTH performing arts group will commemorate the centenary of the First World War by staging an original musical in one of the region’s most historic landmarks. Enter CIC, based in Ferryhill, County Durham, will perform Home Fires at Auckland Castle in Bishop...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Stokesley
THE time of death of every one of a village’s soldiers who died during the First World War is to be marked by residents 100 years on. Great Ayton, in North Yorkshire, has pledged to honour the deaths of all its 48 residents who served between 1914 and 1918. Those who...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Richmond
A SOLDIER from the region has played a part in a unique and historic event commemorating the outbreak of the First World War. Trooper James Casey, 22, from Richmond, travelled to the picturesque town of Bad Ischl in Austria with his regiment, the Queen’s Dragoon...
by Chris Lloyd | Diary of Gunner George James, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
AT 7.30am on July 1, 1916, the guns stopped, the mines exploded, the whistles blew and the British soldiers climbed up out of their trenches and walked into no man’s land towards the German lines. After seven days of non-stop bombardment by heavy guns, they hoped the...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, Middlesbrough
STUDENTS at a Teesside college had a lesson in the harsh realities of war when they visited The Somme to mark the centenary of World War One. The students from Redcar & Cleveland College visited the war graves and museums in Belgium as part of their project on the...
by Chris Lloyd | Diary of Gunner George James, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, War Stories
NINETY-EIGHT years ago this week, Gunner George James was in the trenches near Albert, in northern France, writing his diary. We’ve been following it since the start of the year, but now as July 1, 1916, approaches – the first day of the Battle of the Somme on which...
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...
