Honeymooning - in uncle's old slippers

"It is a very special achievement," announced John, their son. "To those of us close to them, it's also a bloody miracle."

They met at Durham Big Meeting, though it's said that Cora not only thought her future husband was called Jack Cook but that she preferred his mate, who was the better dancer. Jackie, however, had the half crown in his pocket that he got from playing "amateur" football and could afford to take her to the pictures. "She married him for his money," said John.

They were wed at ten o'clock at Lanchester register office, him in on Tommy Bell's bus from Tow Law, her by car from New Kyo. They were the days when you could leave the back door unlocked, if only because there was nothing remotely worth pinching.

Straight afterwards, Jack returned to Tow Law, had a beer with the bus driver in Wheatley's pub, played against Willington - "we lost one-nowt, me mind must have been elsewhere" - and with the additional half crown went off on a one-night honeymoon to Auntie Eleanor's in Easington Colliery.

"He'd bought some new boots which made his heels bleed they were so tight," recalls Cora. "He spent the night of the honeymoon in my uncle's old slippers."

Thereafter, they returned to the marital home in Catchgate, only to discover it swarming with blackclocks, that is to say, cockroaches.

(Though it is a picturesque, if somewhat gruesome, word, none of the dictionaries includes anything between "blackcap" and "blackcock", which is a game bird. The phrase "wick wi' blackclocks" would probably throw the lexicographers still further.)

It is for his sporting prowess, however, that the indomitable Jackie Coe is best remembered. Outstanding at both football and cricket, he not only won three successive Stanley News "Player of the week" jumpers with South Moor St George's CC, but played for Willington in the still remembered 1939 FA Amateur Cup final against Bishop Auckland.

Jackie, barely the height of a corner flag, had worked the fore shift at Page Bank colliery, gone down at four o'clock, loosed out early at ten, got a lift to Roker Park, Sunderland.

Goalless after 90 minutes, the match ended 3-0 to the Bishops after someone in the crowd blew a whistle, a Willington player picked up the ball after assuming that it was the referee and the other lot scored from the resultant free kick.

"After that we were brocken hearted and they crucified us," said Jackie.

He became a Northern League referee, best remembered in welly boots when the going got heavy, was known to advise players who complained of being kicked to kick the buggers back. "Not when I'm watching, mind," added Jackie.

He was only the only cricketer to take 100 wickets in the Mid-Durham Senior League and also recalls a hat trick for Wolsingham, against Crook.

"They took a collection round the field. I got thirty shillings and a raincoat."

They've lived in Sunnybrow, near Willington, since before the war, have four children, eight grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren and one of the generation after that, marked the platinum bond with a splendid do in the Brown Trout at Sunnybrow and a feast that could have fed the five thousand.

Though Jackie's allowed only the occasional drop of Guinness, local MP Hilary Armstrong even brought around a bottle of whisky signed by the Prime Minister. Purely medicinal, they agreed.

There was also a telegram, or the technological equivalent, from the Queen. "Was she at the Cup final an' all?" said Jackie.

Cora, bless her, had never once removed the wedding ring, the one Jackie's mother had to buy because he was either down the pit or playing football. "I will say this," she said, "it makes you very thankful, doesn't it."

IF a 70th wedding anniversary is a platinum, readers may like to suggest the name of a first, third, tenth, 15th, 30th, 35th, 40th and 55th. Answers at the foot of the column.

THE Coe family has still further cause for celebration - posthumous, courageous and a tribute to doggedness down the generations.

Maureen Fox is Jack and Cora's daughter and a world class veteran table tennis player, though the only reason Jackie had taken her to Brancepeth Miners' Welfare all those years ago was to try to teach her snooker.

For years, a picture of her late grandfather - Sgt Jack Graham of the Royal Artillery - stood proudly on the sideboard in Sunnybrow. Sgt Graham fought in the First World War and had been decorated. A quarter of a century ago, Maureen tried to find out more.

"It was when I lived in London. I went to the Royal Artillery headquarters at Woolwich Arsenal, about 1976, talked to some people there and followed their advice."

No one, however, could find a record of Jack Graham - not even Sunderland police, where he also became a sergeant.

His wife had died when Cora was just six weeks old, after which the baby was taken to live with relatives in Tow Law. "It was a long journey from Sunderland to Tow Law in those days. She didn't see a great deal of him," says Maureen.

Still she fired blanks - "they told me a lot of records had been lost during the blitz of London, but I was determined to discover more. He was wearing quite a lot of medals in the photograph. I knew it must have been something particularly outstanding."

Finally, Joan Ludlow, her sister in Redcar, proposed writing to the French authorities instead. "I admit I thought it was a waste of time," says Maureen. "If we didn't have records of our own, how could we expect the French to have them?"

Helped by a French-speaking friend, Mrs Ludlow wrote to Paris nonetheless - and within two weeks the full story of Jack Graham's gallantry had at last come to light.

Within weeks in the trenches in 1917, he has rescued a corporal from a collapsed shelter, led his battery under heavy bombardment and organised an attack despite heavy enemy fire.

With the information came the citation - the Croix de Guerre and Palm, the country's highest honour, and a note from Col Pierre-Richard Kohn at the French embassy in London. "An outstanding citation," it read, "you can really be proud of what your grandfather did."

The citation addresses "bel exemple de sang-froid et de courage", translated as courage and coolness under fire. Joan also discovered that her grandfather had won the Military Cross. In any language, Jack Graham was a hero.

HEADED "Gingerbread Willies celebrate 250th edition", a press release arrives from Jim Foster in Robin Hood's Bay - editor of the monthly village magazine Bayfair.

Willie the Seagull, it should immediately be explained, is Bayfair's red and white-scarved mascot. The gingerbread biscuits are bird-shaped, not otherwise, though Gill Jones and Georgina Killen at the Old Bakery reckon they more greatly resemble an albatross.

Bayfair has been around since 1975, is hugely informative and has a website, too - www.bayfair.co.uk. The accompanying gingerbread Willie was delicious.

...and finally, those never to be forgotten anniversaries. A first is cotton, third leather, tenth tin, 15th crystal, 30th pearl, 35th coral, 40th ruby and 55th emerald. These occasions appear not to be bejewelled after the 70th: Jack and Cora, it is fervently to be hoped, will compel the need of a neologism.

Published: 10/05/2001