AN amateur historian who has made it his mission to create a record of a district's 900 war-dead, is looking to residents to help him.

Clive Bowery, of Chester-le-Street, began his incredible task when he visited Commonwealth war graves nearly four years ago.

While he was there, Mr Bowery noticed the names of a number of Chester-le-Street soldiers and he returned home determined to put together a record of everyone who died from Chester-le-Street and nearby villages during the two world wars.

But he soon discovered this was no easy task.

"When I first started, I thought it would be fairly straight forward and easy, a couple of weeks work," said Mr Bowery, who lives in Elm Way, Hilda Park.

"I thought I would get down a few names from the memorial in Chester-le-Street and type the names into the Commonwealth War Graves records, which would give me the main details like date of birth and the regiment they served in. But when I did, I found the names often didn't get anything back from the records."

His problems were compounded by the fact that names were often mis-spelt on war memorials and soldiers were often transferred to other regiments while posted abroad, unbeknown to their families back home.

A lot of the records from the First World War were also destroyed during the Second World War.

As a result, Mr Bowery, an IT systems programmer at Durham University, has spent the last four years trawling through obituaries in newspapers from the times, visiting the Public Records Office and the British Library in London and making several trips a year to visit commonwealth graves in Europe.

He said: "There isn't one centralised source of information, which lists who died from each area and where.

"My ultimate aim will be to get details of all 800 to 900-plus people. I was born and bred in Chester-le-Street, so I'm showing my gratitude to the people who made the ultimate sacrifice"

Mr Bowery will be giving a talk on his research and war memorials in Chester-le-Street, on Saturday, November 15, at 2.30pm, in the pavilion at the park in Pelton Fell, when he will be happy to hear from anyone who has any information about people who died in either of the world wars.

Alternatively he can be contacted on (0191) 388 6331.