November 9th - Dodge WC51
The Dodge hadn't been out since its 80th birthday in August, so I wanted a run out to keep everything working and to avoid flat spots on the tyres. As in past years around this time, I went out to visit several local war memorials. Today's trip was to West Rainton, Sherburn Village, Bowburn and
Pittington in County Durham.
The first was at West Rainton. Looking at historic images on Google Earth, the oldest picture is from around 1945, showing approximately one hundred and twenty three houses, as best as I can make out. There are sixty six names listed, just amongst the World War One dead. Averaging that out, every other house in the village lost someone.
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It is a similar story on many of the other local memorials. Considering the villages were probably much smaller during the first war, compared to the 1945 aerial photos, the losses must have been devastating to each small
community. While at St Laurence's church, one of the church members turned up to
tidy up the memorial. I'd alread brushed all the leaves from it. He said they
were holding a service there on Sunday morning if I wanted to attend.
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November 10th - Ford GPW
I started the day by taking the Ford GPW out to St. Laurence's church in Pittington, for the Remembrance service.
After a half hour service in the church, we moved out to the memorial. An alarming number of names were read out, mostly from World War 1. As with West Rainton yesterday, the village wasn't that large in WW1, so must have been another huge blow to the community.
After the service, I drove on to Littletown, which is more of a village with around seventy houses in 1945. There are twelve names on the Littletown memorial, all but one from the first war.
From there, I drove on to Shotton Colliery, where there's a large memorial within a memorial garden. There were still a few people there from a service not long finished. Several took an interest in the Jeep and had a group photo with it.
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The next stop was Haswell village, where the memorial is located within the church yard. This was quite a large village, but as you can imagine, that resulted in an equally large number of names on the memorial. The last stop for
the day was Ludworth, a village of around two hundred houses in 1945. There are about twenty five names on the memorial, mostly from the first war.
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November 11th - Hotchkiss
M201
Day three was a longer drive, planning to take in nine war memorials. As it happened, there were also some mining memorials on the way too, so the 25 mile drive took around two and a half hours. This time, for day three, I took the M201 Jeep, so that all three vehicles had done one day.
I started again at West Rainton, where I was looking directly into the sun.
Following the remembrance service there, the memorial was covered in fresh
wreaths.
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I headed on to Carrville/Belmont for the next stop. There's double yellow lines on the main road in front of the memorial, so I had to stop in a side street near by.
This memorial was moved from the church yard in 2009. Additional pillars were
added to mark the names of those lost in WW2, Korea and Iraq. From there, I called in at the petrol station, as I think there was only one or two gallons left.
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After filling up, I made my way to Bowburn again, in time for the two minute silence at 11am. While there were a number of wreaths laid yesterday, I was the only one there
on the 11th, as people rushed by, lost in their own lives. Gone are the days
where the world stopped at 11am on the 11th.
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From Bowburn, I crossed the A1(M) motorway and headed to Coxhoe, seen below. Once again,
there was no parking on the main road, but the memorial is outside the village hall and there was a car park next to that.
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On from Coxhoe to Kelloe, two villages we visited during the first year with the Jeep in 2005, for a number of VE Celebration events. The Kelloe memorial stands back from the main road, on a green near the West end of the village.
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Further along the village, in a woodland clearing, there's a memorial to miners lost from East Hetton ( Kelloe ) colliery, between 1836 and 1983. This is close to the Church in Kelloe. Also close to the church is another stone memorial to seventy four miners lost in an mine explosion in 1882.
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After Kelloe, was Quarrington Hill. There are four memorials here, two to the war dead and two to miners. Two stand on the main road, while the other two are in the grounds of the community centre.
The many small wooden crosses were left by Primary school children, who'd left
not long before I arrived.
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Below left, is the Quarrington Hill mining memorial, also located on the main
road, on the opposite side of the junction to the soldier silouettes and
information board. From Quarrington, it was a couple of miles drive to Thornley.
The wall of remembrance stands in a well kept memorial garden. Within this
garden, is another memorial stone to 2nd Lt John Scott Youll V.C.
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Below left, is the memorial to 2nd Lt John Scott Youll V.C. He died just fifteen
days before the end of World War 1.
After Thornley, I headed home, calling in to Ludworth again briefly, as I was passing it on the way back. Over the three days,
I'd driven around 56 miles, taking in fourteen war memorials and five mining memorials. So many names remembered in such a small area of just one county in England.
We Will Remember Them.
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