by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, Newton Aycliffe, People
FOR 97 years, Private Edward Henry Pratt lay in an unmarked grave in Darlington’s West Cemetery. But on Wednesday, that wrong will be righted: this soldier of the First World War will be properly recognised when an official headstone is dedicated after brilliant work...
by Chris Lloyd | Barnard Castle, In Your Town, Latest, People
POSTMAN George Thorn was due to be away from home for a fortnight in 1914 when he did his annual stint as a naval reservist. But when war was declared in August he was on board the battleship HMS Caesar – so right away he became a full time gunner in the Royal...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Durham, In Your Town, Latest, People
The sacrifice of war was felt most keenly in Bowburn, a community of 200 homes of which 47 endured the pain of losing a loved one. CLARENCE Street – an ordinary terraced street, in an ordinary pit village, but one which paid an extraordinary price during the First...
by Chris Lloyd | Bishop Auckland, In Your Town, Latest, People
BISHOP Auckland had never seen anything like it. The unpolished oak coffin, wrapped in a Union flag, led a procession more than a mile long through the streets to the cemetery. There were so many wreaths and floral tributes that they couldn’t all fit in the funeral...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, People
A Christmas card begins the tale of one of Darlington’s sons, who became the first British soldier to die on the mainland in the First World War. Darlington, December 20, 1904 I hope you spend a HAPPY XMAS. I wish I was coming down to Clacton next summer but I...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, People
ON July 20, 1916, Captain Anthony Eden, the future Prime Minister, wrote from the First World War trenches to John Park, a grocer’s assistant of High Northgate, Darlington. “I have a tragic and at the same time a proud duty to perform in telling you all I can about...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Latest, People
Chris Lloyd reports on the men who won the ultimate award for bravery during the First World War: the Victoria Cross. 2nd Lt Donald Bell Green Howards Born: Harrogate, played football for Bishop Auckland and Newcastle United Awarded VC: July 5, 1915, at Contalmaison,...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, People, Tyne & Wear
ONE hundred years after his death, a First World War soldier has finally been given a burial befitting a hero after his remains were found by French construction workers. On October 18, 1914, soldiers from 2nd Battalion, the York and Lancaster Regiment advanced on the...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, People
QUARTERMASTER Sergeant Alfred Harris fought throughout the First World War and when he returned to civvy street, he found himself still wearing military uniforms – to promote films in Darlington’s cinemas. Sgt Harris was a Londoner, who joined the 39th Siege Battery...
by Chris Lloyd | Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, People
IN Haughton-le-Skerne churchyard on Wednesday morning, a clear autumn day with beech nuts crunching under feet on the path, two second cousins met for the first time and remembered one man from the First World War. They were Penny Boal from West Sussex and Barrie Lamb...
by Chris Lloyd | People
THE Wake brothers came from Bamburgh, where their father was the castle lodgekeeper. There was five years between them but, according to a newspaper cutting, “they were very much attached to each other, being the youngest of five sons”. They were both keen sportsman,...
by Chris Lloyd | In Your Town, People, Shildon
HERBERT worked as a hammer driver at the North-East Railway Works at Shildon, but joined the Royal Army Medical Corps a month after war broke out. He was sent to Salonika, in Greece, but caught influenza, then enteritis and finally malaria, which caused him to be sent...
by Chris Lloyd | Durham, In Your Town, People
WALTER’S family were twice wrongly notified that he had died in battle, leading to the marvellous newspaper headline “He is not dead after all”. The third time, though, was not so lucky. Walter came from Cassop, near Durham City, and joined the Durham Light Infantry...
by Chris Lloyd | Barnard Castle, Centenary, In Your Town, Latest, People
GEORGE WALTON, a 37-year-old quarry worker who was married with five children, set an example to other men when he became one of the first in Upper Teesdale to sign up for service in the First World War. But it cost him his life, leaving his wife Sarah Jane to grieve...
by Chris Lloyd | In Your Town, Latest, Middlesbrough, People, Redcar
ON August 1, 1918, Captain Arthur Roy Brown, a 24-year-old Canadian pilot, was involved in a dreadful flying accident at Marske airfield, near Redcar. He was plucked from the mangled wreckage, miraculously – but barely – still alive, and sent to the North Riding...
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 | 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 | 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 | In Your Town, Latest, People, Stockton
At 2am on August 4, 1916, Private William Bailey, right, rose up out of his trench and launched himself over the top. Suddenly, he felt a terrible stinging sensation in his right leg which caused him to topple into the mud of the Somme. A machine gun bullet had...
by Chris Lloyd | Centenary, Darlington, In Your Town, Latest, People
In an unmarked plot in Darlington’s West Cemetery lie the remains of Private Edward Henry Pratt who fought for two years in France, was injured on at least two separate occasions, and eventually died from his wounds in a hospital bed, four months after being...
