THE stories of the men from an east Durham mining community who fought in the Great War were on display this weekend.

Kathleen Anderson showcased some of her research into the Seaham men who died during the First World War, in an exhibition at the town's library in St John's Square.

Mrs Anderson, a teacher at Parkside Infants School, started looking into the lives of her uncles, Jack and Jim Ogden, pitmen turned soldiers who were both casualties of the conflict.

"I had heard tales about them as a little girl and always wanted to pursue it," she said.

"In the course of my research, I realised just how many men from Seaham served in the war - there are thousands of names."

She has started work on a book of remembrance and a database of all those involved.

Men from the port town and its surrounding collieries signed up principally for the Durham Light Infantry and Northumberland Fusiliers, or the Navy.

But there are others such as the seven McCartney brothers who joined the Tyneside Irish battalion. More enlisted in the Green Howards based in Yorkshire, the Royal Field Artillery.

Mrs Anderson's research, carried out with her husband, John, has also revealed the fates of her uncles. Jack was a fiery character who had enlisted in the 2nd Durhams a week before war broke out, after troubled spells at two pits.

Once war was declared he was mobilised. He made the trip across the Channel in May 1915 and was killed only three months later at the Battle of Hooge in Belgium.

His brother, Jim, enlisted in the Tyneside Scottish battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers in June the same year. He survived the first day of the Battle of the Somme, only to be transferred to the Fusiliers and was killed in April 1918 in the Nord region of France, where he is buried.