A hero is honoured at last

He fought for two years on the Western Front, was wounded so badly in the leg, neck and shoulder that, despite returning to the frontline, he was discharged as unfit for military service.

He returned to his wife and three children in Aycliffe Village, a pale shadow of the strong limestone quarry labourer who had gone to war with the Durham Light Infantry.

In fact, four months after his discharge, he died of his wounds in Darlington’s Greenbank Hospital. He was 28.

Because he had been discharged, he didn’t qualify for a war grave. Because she had three young mouths to feed, his wife, Margaret, couldn’t afford a headstone.

Pte Pratt’s grave in West Cemetery, Darlington

But at least his name was carved on the memorial that was unveiled in St Andrew’s churchyard in Aycliffe on October 11, 1922. On October 22, Margaret died, aged 33, leaving the children – Nicholas, 11, Sidney, nine, and Marjorie, six – as orphans.

Aycliffe Village Local History Society is researching all the 13 men named on memorial. Memories 166 asked, on the society’s behalf, if there were any descendants of Pte Pratt.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says his grand-daughter, Margaret Prest, who lives in Darlington. “All the facts fitted. I read it and I was just crying.” She is the daughter of Marjorie.

“My mother’s dad died of his injuries when she was two, and her mother died shortly after that, and she was brought up by ‘Auntie Vic’, who was a relation in Darlington.

“Sidney was brought up by another relation, ‘Uncle Arthur’ in Napier Street, Darlington, until he was 16 and went off to Canada, and Nicholas went off to work on a farm out in Richmond.”

The children were never really told what had happened to their parent and, spread around the globe, the family struggled to stay in touch.

“I met Nicholas once before he died in 1967, and my mother wrote to a forces PO box in Canada to keep in touch with Sidney,” says Margaret.

“Eventually, we went out to visit him in Ontario in 1969 – it was the first time in 26 years that my mother had seen him.”

But Marjorie died in 1977 never knowing where her father was buried.

Private Pratt’s death notice from The Northern Echo

Aycliffe history society – especially David and Elizabeth Lewis, Harry Moses and Vivien and David Ellis – tracked the grave down and discovered Pte Pratt’s war service.

“It is fabulous what they have done and I’m so grateful,” says Margaret.

Led by David Lewis, they discovered Pte Pratt had joined the DLI on October 26, 1915, and was sent to France where, on February 10, 1916, he suffered “mild” gunshot wounds to the left leg and neck.

After three months recovering, he returned to the front only to be struck by gunfire in the right shoulder on September 16, 1916. After six months recovering from that, he returned for a third time to the front, but it quickly became apparent he was unfit to fight on and he was discharged on May 21, 1918.

The poor chap ended up in Greenbank Hospital, where he died on September 15, 1918, of his wounds, and was buried in what Darlington council’s records describe as an “unmarked, unpurchased” grave.

“It’s marked now,” says Margaret. “I’ve put a cross and a plaque on it.

I’ve done it for my mother, as she didn’t know.”

The history society has informed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and it is hoped that a proper headstone can be erected on Pte Pratt’s last resting place in the near future.

Margaret Prest, the great grand-daughter of Private Pratt

Memories will keep readers informed and, in the meantime, pays tribute to the detectives of Aycliffe Village Local History Society.