Amateur historian John Pringle has just returned from the continent after finding the graves of 33 men from his home town who were killed during the First World War.

This brings the total to 95 resting places he has traced out of the 125 men named on the war memorial in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

As The Northern Echo reported on June 16, Mr Pringle has made several trips to France to find and photograph graves, and his total then stood at 62.

This time he tracked down three more graves in France, including that of Robert Walker, the first Barnard Castle man to enlist for the war and the first to die in the trenches. He was killed in January 1915 and is buried at Armentieres.

Also buried there was Joseph Dent, who was killed in January 1916. The third grave was that of Fred Merryweather, killed in April 1918 and buried at Steenwerke.

Mr Pringle, a transport driver of Corn Close, Startforth, then went on to Belgium, where he found another 29 resting places in cemeteries in the Ypres area.

At the Menin Gate memorial, he saw the names of six Barnard Castle men killed on local battlefields and buried there, but with no individual graves - Fred Smith, George Connell, Maurice Wilson, Robert Smiles, Harry Barrett and Thomas Mulgrew.

Private Mulgrew was 38 when he was killed in May 1915, while his son, also Thomas, was 19 when killed at the Somme in 1916.

Another grave Mr Pringle found was of Joseph Ashmore, who was 25 when he fell in March 1916, two years before his brother, Fred, died in France. Also on his new list was John Finn, who was 26 when killed in August 1917, two years after his brother, Patrick, died aged 23 in France after twice being decorated.

On his way home, Mr Pringle stopped at Chatham, Kent, to photograph a memorial to Stoker John Ramsden, who died in the English Channel in January 1915.

As he pieced together his records, he said: "That was a successful trip. I now have 30 more names to trace on the memorial but they will be more difficult. I know of one who died in Italy, one in Germany and several in Turkey.

"There are others of whom I know nothing at all as yet, but I mean to go on searching the records in an effort to find out about all 125."

Mr Pringle's project started after he traced the grave of a relative named on the war memorial in Morpeth, Northumberland, and decided to research all those on one at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle.

He received many phone calls from all over the region after The Northern Echo told his story, and says this helped him fill in some gaps. He hopes eventually to produce a book to honour the 125 men who went to war and did not come back.