A WEEK ago, having been moved by Christopher Nolan’s stunning film, I asked readers to get in touch if they knew anyone who’d been stranded at Dunkirk.

A message came back from Dorothy Morton who wanted me to know that her father, as a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, had been among the last to escape the horror that unfolded on the bombarded beach in northern France.

Among hundreds of thousands of others, this is John Henry Hunt’s story…

Better known as Jack, John Henry Hunt was born in Middleton-in-Teesdale, the son of a lead miner. A clever boy, he passed a scholarship to get into Bishop Auckland Grammar School and was a talented violinist.

He went on to marry a local lass called Annie House and the couple had seven children, two boys and five girls, including Dorothy, who was born in 1926 at 2 Bell Street, Cockton Hill, Bishop Auckland.

Dorothy was a toddler when the family upped sticks and moved to Staffordshire after her father successfully applied for a job working as a mental health nurse in Cheddleton Hospital. His ability with the violin proved an additional appeal because he was able to entertain the patients.

With the threat of war growing, Jack became a reservist with the Royal Army Medical Corps and began training so he was ready when the conflict began. He was called up six weeks before war was declared and ended up serving in France.

In May 1940, with Germany advancing into France, Allied troops, having walked 200 miles to reach the coast, were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, at the mercy of the enemy forces on the ground and in the air.

One of history’s greatest operations followed as an armada of small boats – no one knows for sure how many – sailed across the Channel to the rescue. More than 68,000 men of the British Army died in the Blitzkrieg, retreat and evacuation. A total of 338,226 troops were evacuated.

Jack Hunt, and those serving alongside him in the Medical Corps, were among the last to leave because their grim task was to care for the injured and dying in the midst of the gunfire and bombing.

Eventually, Jack was able to escape back to England on a fishing boat and Dorothy vividly remembers the moment, as a young girl, she heard that her father had survived.

“We’d come back up to Bishop Auckland for a holiday with our grandparents. They had a big attic and us children slept up there.

“One day, a woman from the Salvation Army called and asked my mother if she knew a man called John Henry Hunt. I was on the stairs, and the door was ajar, so I could listen. The woman said he was among a group of soldiers who’d been found on the beach at Dunkirk and recovered in a small boat.

“He was among the last to leave because they were picking up the pieces. You can’t begin to imagine the terrible sights he’d have seen, but he was safe somewhere in the South of England. I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear the news.”

After the war, Jack was told never to go back to nursing, such was the impact of what he’d been through, and he was given an Army pension. The family returned to County Durham and he took a job at a clothing factory at St Helen Auckland. He hated it and left after a few weeks, returning to nursing at Darlington Memorial Hospital, and having his Army pension withdrawn as a consequence.

“He was the kindest, most generous father anyone could wish for but he wasn’t the same man afterwards. He was quiet and never really spoke about the war,” said Dorothy.

“The only thing I remember him telling us was that they’d had to throw their overcoats and boots into the water so the fishing boat that brought them back could take on board one more man.

“My father was only 56 when he died. I think it was fatigue – he was just worn out.”

Dorothy is 90 now and lives opposite the cricket ground in the County Durham village of Etherley. She married a teacher called Stephen Morton and they had a son called Jonathan.

Stephen died 20 years ago but Dorothy took Jonathan to Dunkirk. “I wanted to see where he’d been, where it had all happened and to try to picture what it was like,” she said. “I’ll always be extremely proud of him.”

And so she should be.