Brave and best

A POIGNANT service in a Berlin cemetery this afternoon will honour the memory of two County Durham airmen from neighbouring villages, shot down during the Second World War.

More than 50 people from West Cornforth and Ferryhill will attend the memorial to Sergeant Bill Laverick, killed over Germany on December 29, 1943, and to Sergeant Herbert Howson from Ferryhill, who died exactly a month later.

They will lay wreaths, observe a two minutes’ silence, sing Abide With Me and O God Our Help in Ages Past.

There, too, will be Sgt Laverick’s nephew Flight Lieutenant Richard Fiskel, from Newton Aycliffe, who is commanding officer of the Air Training Corps at Hetton-le-Hole, near Sunderland.

On behalf of Sgt Laverick’s sister, who is 96, Flt Lt Fiskel will also scatter white flowers on the grave in the war cemetery in what was East Berlin.

“I tried to visit when I was with the RAF in Germany, but the wall was still there and the administrative barriers which they put up were also formidable,”

he says.

“It’s wonderful that those two men are being remembered in such a way after all this time. My uncle Bill always loved little white flowers.”

The service will be led by the Reverend Keith Lumsdon, parish priest of Ferryhill and West Cornforth, who has built links with Germany since 1992.

“We have to remember that whoever won and whoever lost, there were not just millions who died but millions more who lost loved ones,” he says.

Bill Laverick, a flight engineer who had been an apprentice fitter at Thrislington colliery near Ferryhill, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal just two months before 35 Squadron took off from RAF Graveley in Huntingdonshire on what was to be his last raid.

The citation spoke of his numerous bombing attacks and of his “outstanding technical skill” which largely had been responsible for damaged aircraft returning safely to base.

“He has continued to display the keenest desire to proceed in operations against the enemy and has built up a fine record of operational service,” it added.

His uncle, after whom he was named, had been killed on the Somme in 1916 at the Battle of Flers- Courcelette – an action in which Raymond Asquith, the son of the British prime minister, also died. Bill Laverick, an acting corporal, was awarded the Military Medal.

Remarkably, Richard Fiskel’s brother – William John Laverick Fiscal, named after the Second World War hero and also raised in West Cornforth – was himself awarded the MBE for his actions as a major in the Royal Signals following the incident in January 1989 when a plane headed for East Midlands airport crashed onto the motorway, killing 46 people.

Major Laverick lived just one junction from the crash. “The name William Laverick just seems to bring out the best and the brave,” says Richard.

Of the seven-man crew that night in December 1943, five – two DFCs and three DFMs – had already been decorated for gallantry. After the Halifax came under attack from a Messerschmidt, only the mid-upper gunner, who bailed out, survived.

He was captured by the SS, told that his comrades’ bodies had been found in the wreckage but lived to tell his own tale. “They were one of the best crews that anyone could wish to fly with,” he said.

Much of the information on Sgt Laverick has been discovered by Andy Denholm, vice-chairman of West Cornforth parish council, who set himself the task of researching all 131 names on the village war memorial – and of finding out about some whose names aren’t even recorded.

“We just got talking about it one night and it’s grown to be an obsession,”

he admits. “My wife keeps asking me if I’m married to her or to the computer. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it because there’s always more information coming up.

“Among the most poignant things about that incident is that there were so many decorated men, clearly among the bravest of the brave.”

Mr Lumsdon, now a fluent German speaker, makes regular twinning visits.

He discovered the graves on a visit to the British war cemetery in Berlin where 3,594 men are buried – 80 per cent of them airmen.

This week’s trip will combine visits to Christmas markets in Germany. “It just seemed to me that we had to do something. It’s going to be a very moving occasion,” he says.

A collection plate given to West Cornforth Methodist chapel in Sgt Laverick’s memory is now used in the parish church. A brass vase from the now closed chapel has been given by the family to Newton Aycliffe ATC, where Flt Lt Fiskel’s son is a sergeant.

It’s used as a shooting trophy.

“I believe my Uncle Bill would have been very proud of the way the people of Germany have turned their country round and how they teach their children never to forget what took place,” he says.

“Uncle Bill died doing what he saw as his duty. I believe that we’re now going back to Germany as friends.”

■ Andy Denholm would welcome further information on anyone on the West Cornforth war memorial, or possibly missing from it. He can be contacted at wewillrememberthem@ hotmail.co.uk

Remember me

THE admirable Creighton Carvello, whose phenomenal memory earned him several entries in the Guinness Book of Records, has died after a long illness. He was 64, and unforgettable.

His records ranged from memorising telephone directories – he claimed to know the number of everyone in the Middlesbrough area whose surname began with an A – to reciting places of pi, the mathematical formula.

Over nine hours, before an audience of Redcar schoolkids, he reached 20,013 – a world record at the time.

“Party tricks,” Creighton would insist, though the Record Holders Republic website reckoned him the world’s most talented man.

“Maybe the most versatile,” he demurred.

The column asked him if the Memory Man ever forgot. “I once did a show and left my coat behind,” he said. “I didn’t dare go back for it, it would have been too embarrassing. I sent a friend instead.”

Creighton – pronounced as in Leyton – was born in India, the middle child of five. His parents returned to Teesside in 1949, where his astonishing power of recollection was evident from an early age – he could recite the code numbers of 50 planes on a set of picture cards. It didn’t much help him at school, though. “I need to have an incentive, like a record to break,” he said.

He became a psychiatric nurse at St Luke’s hospital in Middlesbrough, all the while training his memory, performing charity shows locally and appearing on television worldwide.

“One of the hardest things was learning the Morse code,” he once said. “It took me ten minutes.”

He set another world record, for sporting trivia, by memorising 3,500 facts about every FA Cup final since 1872. It would have been 80,000, he said, if they’d allowed the names of all of the teams as well.

He recited perfectly a 10,000-word passage from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea, could recall a sequence of 13 numbers after seeing them for just one second and 18 after two seconds.

Among his favourite party tricks, even in the care home where he died, was to ask someone’s date of birth and tell them within seconds what day of the week it had been.

“Among the things I’m trying to prove is that your memory can get better with age,” he said.

He was also an artist, pianist, wedding photographer and composer – he wrote a song to mark the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday – and also had a song written about himself, on a CD where other subjects ranged from mayor Mallon to a female petrol pump attendant in Kings Lynn.

Creighton, who never married, suffered a stroke at home in 2007 and lay helplessly for four days before being discovered by a friend. He never fully recovered.

He died on November 18, a passing which might still be unacknowledged but for a lengthy obituary in The Times last Saturday.

Given the countless column inches he filled hereabouts, that would have been remiss – and as the cranial Carvello would doubtless have supposed, it’s always good to be remembered.

The wonder of Arthur's A-list

DESCRIBED by the Reverend Isobel Akers as “nothing short of a miracle”, the sports hall at Eastbourne Methodist Church in Darlington – reborn at a cost of £125,000 – was officially reopened last Friday evening.

Phil Clarke, the superintendent minister, maintained the spiritual theme. “We believe in resurrection, don’t we?” he said.

The hall – “two years ago like the black hole of Calcutta,” said Isobel, graphically – was not alone in its difficulty.

The church’s congregation was increasing in age and decreasing in numbers.

Finally – “bravely,” said Isobel – they decided to say a last Amen to Eastbourne.

Methodist circuit leaders disagreed. The new facilities are splendid, the sports hall attracts hundreds of kids – from all denominations and none – and the congregation’s growing again, too.

The opening evening was dedicated to Arthur Wharton, a Methodist preacher who became Britain’s first black professional footballer, kept goal for Darlington in the late 19th Century and was the country’s 100 yard champion, too.

A campaign to erect a statue in his honour is being fronted by Shaun Campbell, who runs Drum Art Furniture in Grange Road – “Next to Oddbins,” said Mr Clarke. “All Methodists know where Oddbins is.”

Shaun, endlessly enthusiastic, came to Darlington 25 years ago, intending to stay for a week. He never left. Arthur Wharton, he said unequivocally, would have played for England but for the political climate and the colour of his skin.

Viv Anderson became England’s first black international instead, but that was 91 years later.

Already the campaign has an Alist of supporters, including the singer Stevie Wonder; already Shaun carries round a bronze maquette of the proposed statue as a child might clutch a comfort blanket.

If his latest scheme bears fruit, the A-list will become headier yet. He’s sure the statue will rise. The speeches lasted half an hour. Afterwards, like all good Methodists, they headed back downstairs for a well-earned cup of tea.

AT the risk of this becoming a slip edition of the Methodist Recorder, it should be said that one of the great highlights of Christmas – Coffee and Carols at Newbiggin Methodist Church – again takes place next Tuesday, December 9, at 10.30am.

Jane Ford, from the Concordia ensemble, will be soloist. Mince pies will be endless.

The chapel, the oldest Methodist church in continuous use, celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2009 with a full programme of events, including an exhibition from June 19- 21.

It’s between Middleton-in-Teesdale and High Force. Coffee and Carols is open, and strongly recommended, to all.

THEN back to Darlington, where the good folk of Northlands Methodist Church – almost opposite Morrisons in North Road – are intent on ensuring that the old and lonely enjoy a happy Christmas.

On Christmas Day there’s a party at the church – “good food, entertainment, carol singing,” says Phil Clarke – and food will be taken to those who cannot leave home.

Phil will welcome both names of those who could be invited plus offers of food and help with transport, entertainment and catering. He’s on 01325-282491 or phil@elmridgemethodistchurch. co.uk

AT St Mary’s church in Shincliffe, a couple of miles south-east of Durham, there’s a Christmas tree festival starting at 7pm tomorrow with music and readings and continuing from 11am-4pm on Saturday and 2-4pm on Sunday. Entry is free, donations welcomed.

Across at Kirkby Stephen, our friends from the Stainmore Railway Company – restoring the former East railway station to 1950s working use – have a Christmas Fayre on Saturday and Sunday, from 10am- 4pm. There’ll be live music, stalls, buffet car, free mulled wine for the adults and sweets for the bairns and, of course, Santa Claus.

SO finally, last week’s column on Wilf Proudfoot – the Crook lad who became supermarket magnate, hypnotherapist, government minister and Cleveland’s Conservative MP from 1959-64 – reminded Stan Wilson in Thirsk of Jim Tinn, Wilf’s Labour successor in the seat.

Jim was a Consett ironworker – a real good bloke, says Stan. Stan at the time was a dedicated NUT man (“a little bit rebellious”) though he in turn became a LibDem parliamentary candidate.

He remembers the final selection meeting, Tinn against a keen young feller of 30 or so from Sheffield.

“My dad and me thought the other feller was brilliant but all the blastfurnacemen’s union members from the ironstone mines had been told to vote for Jim.”

The other chap did all right, too – his name was Roy Hattersley – and Stan Wilson, memory suggests, also became a Methodist preacher.