PETER LEE had a new town named after him; Thomas Kenny had a drift mine at Wheatley Hill Colliery named in his honour.

He deserved it, too. In the horrific mud of the First World War trenches, he won the Victoria Cross because “his pluck, endurance and devotion to duty were beyond praise”.

Thomas’ tale is told more fully at Wheatley Hill’s open day next Saturday.

Nearly all his life was ordinary.

He was born in South Wingate into a mining family and became a miner. When war broke out in 1914, he was still in South Wingate, living in Walker’s Buildings with his wife, Isabel, and their six children.

He signed up for the 13th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry nearly immediately – perhaps one of those who hoped the war offered a quick, exciting, out-of-the-ordinary adventure on foreign fields.

On November 4, 1915, more than a year after he signed up, he was still in the Somme’s trenches, near Armentieres, south of Ypres.

This was to be his extraordinary night.

In thick fog, after heavy rain, he was on patrol in no man’s land with his officer, Lieutenant Philip Brown, a Durham University lecturer.

They were lost – but a German sniper found them.

A single shot pierced both of Brown’s thighs and he fell, incapacitated.

Kenny pulled him out and for an hour, squirming and crawling through the mud, under continuous heavy fire, he carried his injured lieutenant on his back.

Eventually he found a trench he recognised. He made Brown as comfortable as possible and, despite sheer exhaustion, went for help.

Then, with blood pouring from his hands and knees, he guided the rescuers into no man’s land to the unconscious officer.

Again, bullets rained down.

Together, they ferried Brown to the safety of a listening post. As the lieutenant was slid onto a stretcher to be carried back to the dressing station, he came round enough to say: “Well, Kenny, you’re a hero.”

Those were his last words.

He died before he reached the dressing station.

Kenny received his VC from King George V at Buckingham Palace, on March 4, 1916.

Seven days later, he visited his old school – St Mary’s, in Wingate – where a pupil asked him about his selfless bravery. “All I can say is that I did my duty in France to the best of my ability,” he replied, as if it were ordinary.

He returned to the frontline, survived an injury and saw out the war.

In peace, he returned to the hard life at Wingate Colliery, moving, in 1927, to be a stoneman at Wheatley Hill where they named a drift in his honour.

He died, aged 66, at his home in Darlington Street, and was buried in the cemetery Peter Lee helped to create.

In 1968, Wheatley Hill Colliery closed, and the Kenny Drift went with it.