THE local newspapers of 1915 are full of poorlyreproduced photographs of men who went to war and never came back.

The Northern Echo of June 24 that year is typical. Beneath a couple of pictures of the opening of the new bowling green and tennis courts in Bishop Auckland, there’s a higgledy- piggledy gallery of five faces.

On the far right, in his naval uniform, is Able Seaman R White of Hunwick, who had been wounded.

Next to him is Private George Manners of Howlish Terrace, Coundon, who had been killed near Armentieres on the France/Belgium border. It looks like he’s wearing rounded, wire rim spectacles.

Next to him is Private Joseph Gordon, with a neat moustache on his upper lip and army cap perched on his swept back hair.

He used to work at Murton Colliery, on the east Durham coast, but had been killed fighting in the Canadian Regiment at Vimy near Arras in France.

And then there’s HT Myers of Blandford who’s been wounded in the Dardanelles. Through the dark ink of his seaman’s uniform, the words “Royal Navy” can just be made out on his hatband.

The line-up is completed by Bugler George Frederick Sanderson, and his picture looks very different to the military men he is alongside.

He’s not in uniform – he’s in Sunday best, with rounded, starched collars and a fluffed up tie. His vigorous hair has been combed flat, his brow is unlined and his lips look untroubled by a razor.

In comparison, he looks very young.

He is, as far as we know, the youngest Darlingtonian to die in the First World War. Just 15. Not a man – still a boy.

He was the eldest of six children who lived with his parents, John and Jane Annie in 38, Dodds Street, just off Greenbank Road – 100 years later, he would still recognise the terrace on the south side of his street, but his home on the north side has been replaced.

According to the incredible research done by Stephen Nicholson into the 1,045 Darlingtonians who fell during the war, George had only been employed by the North- Eastern Railway for two months as a temporary engine cleaner before he signed up with the 2/5 Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment.

It was a territorial battalion formed as a home service unit so, perhaps because of his age, it may be that it was never intended that he went overseas to fight.

He certainly never got further than Newcastle because, “after a short illness”, he died in Walker Gate Hospital of either meningitis or fever on June 21, 1915.

He is buried beneath a War Graves Commission headstone in Byker and Heaton Cemetery.

The Commission’s website tells us that his mother – Mrs JA Sanderson of 38, Dodds Street – paid 5s 10d extra to have the 20 letters of “Safe in the arms of Jesus” inscribed upon it.

What must she have thought?

The Northern Echo:
Back Row: Pte F Nodding and P Sewell of Cockfield, Pte F Pigdon of Darlington, and Pte G Hall of Cockfield. Front: Ptes J Robson, N Raine and J Clennell of Cockfield and Corporal Wilson of Bishop Auckland

TWO DAYS before it published the photograph of Bugler George Sanderson in June 1915, The Northern Echo published this intriguing photograph above, which had been sent in by Pte F Pigdon of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It shows eight south Durham soldiers, and a couple of dogs, relaxing behind the lines somewhere on the Western Front.

They’ve painted “Our Little Grey Home In The West” on the wall behind them, which was the title of one of the biggest songs of the day – indeed, the late Queen Mother once said it was her favourite song in her youth.

It was written in 1911, words by D Eardley-Wilmot, who sounds splendidly British, and music by Hermann Löhr, who might have been German.

It became a gramophone hit the following year for the popular Australian baritone Peter Dawson, below left, and it is easy to see why soldiers far from home empathised with its yearning lyrics: 

The Northern Echo:
IN GOOD VOICE: Australian baritone Peter Dawson, who popularised Little Grey Home in the West, seen here in the 1930s

When the golden sun sinks in the hills 
And the toil of a long day is o’er 
Though the road may be long, in the lilt of a song 
I forget I was weary before 
Far ahead, where the blue shadows fall 
I shall come to contentment and rest 
And the toils of the day will be all charmed away 
In my little grey home of the west.

There are hands that will welcome me in 
There are lips I am burning to kiss 
There are two eyes that shine just because they are mine 
And a thousand things other men miss 
It’s a corner of heaven itself 
Though it’s only a tumble-down nest 
But with love brooding there, why no place can compare 
With my little grey home in the west.

The song was also open to parody, particularly as “my little grey home in the west” could easily become “my little wet home in a trench”. Here’s a Western Front version:

I’ve a little wet home in a trench, 
Where the rainstorms continually drench, 
There’s a dead cow close by 
With her feet in towards the sky
And she gives off a terrible stench.

Underneath, in the place of a floor, 
There’s a mass of wet mud and some straw, 
But with shells dropping there, 
There’s no place to compare, 
With my little wet home in the trench.