Grandad was a war hero

SERGEANT JAMES GRAHAM performed some extremely brave deeds during the First World War. He'd been awarded the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and he had been mentioned in despatches. But his family did not know why.

Over the course of the last one hundred years, his medals and papers had got lost. His grand-daughter, Joan Ludlow of Redcar, tried to track down his British army records, but they appear to have been destroyed during a Second World War air raid on London.

So all she knew was that her grandfather had been born in Tow Law in 1885. Perhaps because his father had been killed down a coalmine, James had stayed above ground and joined the Sunderland Borough Police. He volunteered for war duty in September 1915, joined the 108 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (RFA), and was sent out to the Western Front.

The horsedrawn field artillery looked after the medium calibre guns and howitzers that fired at the enemy from close to the front line. Although the RFA was fairly mobile, the object of many enemy attacks was to capture and destroy the guns that were raining shells down on their trenches.

Somehow James survived three years of carnage. He returned home and served with the police until his death from emphysema in 1943, when he was only 58.

"I am the only one left in our large family who spoke to my grandfather," says Joan. "I was about four or five and my mother took me from Sunnybrow, near Crook, where I grew up, to Sunderland and I remember holding his hand and going for a walk with him."

In a last attempt to find out more, she wrote to the French embassy in London who forwarded her query to Paris. Colonel Pierre-Richard Kohn replied, including a copy of James' citation and a Croix de Guerre.

The citation, dated January 1919 and signed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, one of France's greatest war heroes, begins: "Sgt James Graham always displayed to everyone the very best example of coolness under fire, and of courage." It then lists three incidents of his coolness, perhaps the most outstanding occuring on September 2, 1917.

"Under heavy bombardment, he rescued a corporal buried in a caved-in shelter."

As well as rescuing a stricken colleague, the citation suggests how a few days later he had worked out how to get his battery – perhaps up to 200 men – to a place of safety while under heavy fire.

These actions were recognised by the award of the Croix de Guerre avec palme –- the Cross of War with palm. This was the French equivalent of the British "mentioned in despatches", but the French added emblems to the cross' green and red ribbon to denote different degrees of valour. A bronze star was the lowest. A silver star was one rung up with a silver gilt star higher still. A bronze palm leaf was above a silver gilt star, and top of the ladder was a silver palm, which was awarded for five bronze mentions.

As James got a bronze palm on his ribbon, his award was pretty high up the bravery tree.

"This is an outstanding citation and you can be really proud of what your grandfather did," wrote Col Kohn to Joan.

She says: "I can't tell you how thrilled and overjoyed I was to receive the citation and medal from the French. My grandfather was a real hero, and I am very proud of him, and so are all his ancestors."

IN Memories 173, we told of the VAD – Voluntary Aid Detachment – nurses who ran convalescent hospitals for injured soldiers. Brenda Wright, of Darlington, has discovered this magnificent picture of all the town's VAD nurses. Their hospital was started in the Friends Meeting House in Skinnergate, but switched to the Woodside mansion, in the west end of town, when it became vacant in late 1915.

There about 30 VAD hospitals in County Durham, and a similar number in North Yorkshire. They were usually sited in stately homes, and their commandant was usually a formidable member of the local nobility.

For example, in the king's birthday honours of May 1918, Lady Beresford Peirse, the commandant of the VAD hospital in her husband's Bedale Hall, in Bedale, was awarded an OBE for her nursing work.

In the same honours, Edith Petter received a British Empire Medal for running the Darlington VAD hospital since its inception. The most obvious explanation for the differing level of the honours was that Lady Beresford Peirse was the wife of Sir Henry, whose family had owned much of Bedale since the 16th Century, whereas Edith was the wife of a doctor whose practice was in Stanhope Road, Darlington.

Edith, though, deserved her award. "She has been unremitting in her efforts to make and keep the hospital thoroughly efficient and to render a stay of the pateitns therein as comfortable and pleasant as possible," said the Northern Despatch newspaper in reporting her honour. "She is of a genial disposition, an able manager and has proved that she is in every way fitted for the post which she has now filled for over three years with complete success."

THE 17th VAD hospital in County Durham was in The Red House in Etherley, near Bishop Auckland. This had been the home of mineowner Henry Francis Stobart – his wife, Jessica, was also honoured for being hospital commandant.

Tom Hutchinson of Durham has kindly sent in this postcard which shows both the grand house and the prefab ward which was erected in the grounds. On the rear, a nurse has written the message: "Ethel. That is where I sleep opposite the open door. The rooks make a deuce of a noise. They are building their nests in the trees around the house."

Several people have sent in stories about their families' involvement with the VAD hospital in Etherley, which will be appearing in future weeks – does anyone have anymore?

The Stobart family handed The Red House back to the military for use in the Second World War as a troop billet. It was demolished soon afterwards and now a small estate of houses – called Red Houses – stands on its site.

THERE has been a lot of interest in last week's article about "Ropner's little navy", and we shall be returning to it in future weeks. Many thanks, as ever, to everyone who has been in touch.

One of the questions last week concerned the first four merchant ships that Sir Robert Ropner built when he took over the North Shore shipyard on the Tees at Stockton in 1888. They were called Maltby, Aislaby, Raisby and Thornaby, and established a Ropner convention of naming his ships after Saxon settlements in the Stockton area. Maltby, Aislaby and Thornaby are all south Stockton, but we were perplexed by Raisby.

John Smailes of Durham has been in touch because the answer is contained in his book about Steetley's quarrying operations in the North-East, which we reviewed in Memories 57.

Sir Robert, you will remember, arrived in this country as a penniless German immigrant in 1859, but by 1881he had prospered so well in West Hartlepool that he was able to join forces with other entrepreneurs and buy the Raisby Hill limestone quarries near Coxhoe. One of his partners was Sunderland shipowner Sir John Storey Barwick who celebrated the purchase of the quarries by naming his latests screw steamer "Raisby".

Unfortunately, on Christmas Day three years later, the Raisby was sailing from Singapore to New York with a cargo of tea and silk and Japanese fancy items when it hit an unmarked wreck off Aden. Her crew, passengers and one stowaway were rescued, but the Raisby sunk.

This left the way clear for Sir Robert, when he began building his own ships in Stockton, to name one of his first vessels after his Durham quarry. Sir John and the quarry manager, James Tait, both had shares in the second Raisby.

It sailed the seas, earning them money, for 12 years. But in 1901, this Raisby was wrecked in the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

BLOB The editions of local newspapers which reported the May 1918 King's Birthday Honours also reported that Second Lieutenant R Ropner, the son of Robert of Hartburn and the grandson of Sir Robert, was officially listed as missing. The good news is that he appears to have turned up, lucky chap, because no Ropners are listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.