GEORGE TOWNS, a corporal in the Home Guard, sprung into action when told a suspicious character was in his area during the Second World War. He grabbed a shotgun, ran to challenge the stranger and ended up firing at him.

The man was wounded, but he turned out to be a harmless tramp, Arthur Burch, rather than an enemy agent or spy. He happened to be passing through the Mickleton area in March 1944 when someone rang the police about him.

The pellets fractured two bones in the tramp’s arm as well as causing severe flesh wounds.

He was treated by Dr P.A.

MacGregor in Middleton before being taken to hospital in Darlington.

The corporal, a respected farmer and a machine gun instructor in the Home Guard, was charged with unlawful wounding. He appeared before Greta Bridge magistrates.

The police maintained he was wrong to fire the gun. They claimed he was not on Home Guard duty and it was not an official weapon.

The Northern Echo:
A warning sign at another farm near Middleton

But he replied that Home Guard men were on duty all the time. J.E.

Brown-Humes, who defended him, declared that in time of war it was possible that fifth columnists were in this country. The magistrates agreed and dismissed the charge.

The also found him not guilty of using the shotgun without a licence.

ACOURTING couple, who ambled over a field on a dale farm to pick hazelnuts, had to make a hurried escape when a bull charged towards them.

They managed to scramble over a wall and fence just in time, but not without damage to their clothes – and their dignity. The incident meant a warning was needed to ensure other folk did not venture onto the land at Park End Farm near Middleton.

But rather than put up a sign saying Beware of the Bull, the message was contained in an amusing poem. It was displayed in 1870 at the farm entrance, beside the road to Holwick, and was soon attracting attention. It began: ‘Tis pleasant in autumn or summer or spring/To walk by the Tees and hear the birds sing/If walking your steps to the westward should tend/Beware of the bull at the farm of Park End’.

The Northern Echo:
Arthur Burch turned out of Mickleton and was walking up this road to Kelton when he was shot

The farm was run by the Raines back then and is still in the same family, in the shape of Peter and Teresa Raine. They have a Galloway bull and there are still hazelnut trees on their land.

FOLLOWING a piece here about Colour Sergeant William Burney of Mickleton, John Biggs and his sister Kath got in touch to say their great grandfather was also called William Burney and lived in Mickleton.

He was from a different branch of the family. Born in 1857, he was 19 years younger than the military man, but like him he worked in a quarry. There could have been confusion in the village over two men with the same name who did similar work. Stan Walinets’ fine book, A Hundred Mickleton Years, records that in 1895 William Burney was paid sixpence a time to light oil lamps and clean the schoolroom before parish council meetings. But it is not known now which of the Williams did the job.

John and Kath have a photograph of their William, dapper in suit and bowler hat, outside his home in Quebec Terrace, Mickleton. His son, William Ernest Burney, ran a grocery shop a century ago in Cotherstone, in the property where Hannah Hauxwell now lives.

But it was not a great success, possibly because he spent too much time fishing in the Tees. His daughter Florence, mother of John and Kath, was born at Cotherstone in 1914, but lived most of her life in Bishop Auckland. Her husband, John Dickenson Biggs, worked for Harrisons, a wholesale firm which delivered fruit and vegetables to shops in the area.

The brother and sister have both now retired following distinguished teaching careers. They share a house in Etherley Grange, where they have a file of family photographs and documents. They have happy memories of their grandfather, who lived with them in his later years. His Cotherstone shop was run in more recent times by the Eccles family before being converted to a house.

The colour sergeant was so proud of his dress uniform that he wore it regularly even after the Rifle Volunteers unit he served in was disbanded.

ASTORY told here how a man was swept to his death over High Force when a rope snapped as attempts were made to pull him to safety from the central rocks.

It led to a reminder about another incident there in the summer of 1912. Three men and two women were stranded on the middle section when the level of the Tees rose suddenly.

They had walked there easily but had no chance of getting back.

Luckily Joseph Bainbridge of Bowlees, one of Lord Barnard’s workers, was there with Tom Shield of Middleside.

They ran to the High Force Hotel and came back with a ladder, a long pole and lengths of rope. Watched by a large number of visitors, they put the ladder and pole over the gap, threw over a rope, and told the five how to get across. In turn they tied the rope round their waist, straddled the pole and eased their way over a few inches at a time.

The Northern Echo:
John and Kath Biggs with their file of family pictures and documents

There was applause from the watchers as the rescue was completed.

The five were grateful to the two heroes but admitted that, like many other visitors, they had no idea how dangerous the waterfall could be.