Sharing hidden stories of millions

CATTERICK GARRISON, with its Army architecture in modern red brick tucked away behind tall fences, does not strike one as being full of history.

But, since it was built on farmland in the spring of 1915, millions of men have passed through it, all with their personal histories to tell.

In the First World War alone, 750,000 soldiers were stationed at the garrison – and nearly all of them would have used the Catterick Military Railway.

Work started on it in September 1914, before many local people even knew that a military camp was going to cover their farmland.

However, they were told it was going to be a “semipermanent”

wartime measure, so they didn’t object too much as East Anglian fishermen – whose usual line of work had been stopped by enemy action in the North Sea – arrived to start building the 2,000 huts.

They were also told it was going to be called “Richmond Camp”, but the Post Office soon became confused with Richmond upon the Thames, in Surrey, and so it was named “Catterick Camp”.

In October 1916, the first of 40,000 soldiers arrived, although as the fishermen hadn’t yet built proper roads, the wet winter weather quickly created terribly muddy conditions – ideal preparation for the Somme.

The four-and-a-half mile military railway, with its main station called Camp Centre, transported the men to the Richmond branchline.

“It was from here that thousands of soldiers left Catterick Camp to start their journeys to the Far East, to India, the Mediterranean, in fact, every part of the globe where the British Army saw service over the years following 1915,” said railway historian AJ Ludlam, in his 1993 book on the railway.

“Here troops, together with horses and vehicles entrained; from here thousands left Catterick on their release leave, on their return to civilian life and thousands more crowded onto trains for 14 days’ leave, 48 hours’ leave, or a day return to Darlington.”

Today, troops are still leaving Catterick for war zones – most notably Afghanistan – but no longer via the railway. It closed in October 1964, and the stations on the branchline – Richmond, Catterick Bridge, Scorton, Moulton, Croft Spa – shut in March 1969.

ONE of the worst jobs on the Catterick military line was Railway Picquet. These were the soldiers who manned the three main ungated level crossings.

When the picquet heard a train coming, the soldiers had to stop the road traffic using a couple of red hurricane lamps and a large red board that said: “Stop train crossing.” Mervyn Walker, of Northallerton, said: “I had duty on that line in 1954. It was bitterly cold and we had a hut. We would stand outside on the line holding a piece of coal, which was a signal to the fireman on the passing engine to shovel burning coal on to the track, so we could keep warm overnight.”

Author AJ Ludlam painted an unsentimental picture of the duty: “Two smelly hurricane lamps, a small wooden shelter and stewed Army tea from a flask were small compensation for a night out of bed.”

John Woodhouse, of Colburn, was on picquet duty in 1955. He was another who rang following the publication of last week’s picture, which we said showed the Walkerville level crossing. All callers agreed that it was where Horne Road, from Tunstall to Hipswell, crossed – “Cinema Crossing”.

Mr Woodhouse recognised the Le Cateau and Mons guardroom on the right of the crossing. The white wall was part of the prisoners’ exercise yard (where naughty soldiers were held rather than foreign fighters) and has now been demolished.

The building behind survives. It is offices for the military vehicle depot.

“It still says on the wall ‘Standing Orders for 2TR’ – that’s the 2nd Training Regiment,” said Mr Woodhouse, who spent 23 years in the Signals Regiment and 20 years on the camp as a policeman.

“Cinema Crossing” was named when the Camp Cinema was built nearby in 1936. It rendered obsolete four ramshackle cinemas – one of which had been an old skating rink moved from Darlington – that had been erected during the First World War.

However, the Camp Cinema burned down in about 1940, leaving only the Essoldo to entertain the soldiers.

Opposite the site of the cinema near the level crossing is a retail parade, which locals know as “the White Shops”.

Eric Caygill, of Colburn, who worked on the camp from 1950 to 1998, points out that a metal strip is in the pavement outside the shops marking the boundary between the public highway and private land.

“I remember being in one of the shops in the early Seventies and there was hell on outside,” said Mr Caygill.

“A policeman had put a ticket on a car parked on the path and the driver had torn it up in front of him and told him: “Go get your sergeant, with my compliments.

“The policeman jumped into his mini and returned a few minutes later with the sergeant, who took one look and took the policeman around the corner for a rollicking.

“The driver had parked on the path – but he’d parked on the side of the path that was private.”

SEVERAL people have asked how the military railway crossed the River Swale prior to 1922 when Cleveland Bridge and Engineering built the skeletal metal bridge, which is still in Catterick racecourse car park.

AJ Ludlam explains, in The Catterick Camp Military Railway and the Richmond Branch (Oakwood Press, 1993): “It crossed the Swale by means of the Great North Road bridge and along an embankment which rose alongside the road so as to be level with the top of the bridge.” So, the railway shared Catterick Bridge with road traffic, both motorpowered and horsedrawn.

The bridge – today on the A6136 having been by-passed by the A1 in 1959 – has a steep southern incline, so the soil embankment must have risen to quite a height.

THE military line joined the Richmond Branchline near Catterick Bridge Station, which was actually in a little settlement called Citadilla.

Colin Harrison emailed to say that he has holidayed in “the walled and fortified town of Cittadella about 20 miles from Venice”.

The two appear to be related. A citadel was the strongest part of a Roman fortification, which was designed to protect a town.

Presumably, the citadilla on the northern bank of the Swale at Catterick was to protect the Roman garrison town of Cataractonium on the southern bank from raiding Scots.

Citadilla has now been subsumed into Brompton-on-Swale, although it is remembered in street names.

Archives reveal fate of the Railway Hotel

THE Northern Echo’s archives have yielded a new picture of the Railway Hotel, which stood on Haggie’s Corner, in Citadella, at Catterick Bridge.

You will remember it was destroyed when an ammunition train exploded in February 1944, killing 12.

Robert Haggie was the Railway’s landlord from 1916 to 1932.

David Chapman, from Merrybent, near Darlington, points out that the Darlington Brown Trout Angling Association still fishes on the Swale for the Robert Haggie Cup: the most weight in a day, usually fished for at the beginning of September.

It is believed the club, which now meets in Scorton, met at the Railway Hotel prior to the blast.

Love letters show proof of affairs of the heart

LAST week, we featured a breathless will he/won’t he love story from 100 years ago. It concerned the diary of Enid Robinson, from a wealthy Darlington family, who was expecting Ernest Rigg, a poor Staithes artist, to propose to her. Many people have been in touch – thankyou all – including Tony Cooper, of developers Bussey and Armstrong.

In 1979, he was working in Middleton St George where Miss Robinson had settled after marrying the village GP. In a skip outside Felix House – the doctor’s surgery – Tony noticed an unwanted shoebox of envelopes with Edwardian stamps. The envelopes, addressed to Miss Robinson, hint at more stories to come.

One of them contained a memento of the affair of the heart: a New Year’s card signed by Ernest Rigg.

Inspiring read about 1,200-year-old village

MAN has known about Sockburn for at least 1,200 years: the Saxons’ most eminent religious men gathered there, Sir John Conyers slayed a fire-breathing dragon there, successive important families built their mansions there and time’s decay wiped them away.

But hardly ever, in all those centuries, can a wind have blown as strong there as it did on Sunday.

The occasion was the launch of two books that tell the story of this romantically-ruined peninsula to the south of Darlington, and to help raise funds for its continuing restoration.

The books were inspired by Bertha Clegg who, 100 years ago, published a compendium of sayings, verses and historic stories inspired by Sockburn’s unique atmosphere.

Bertha’s book was to raise money to build the vicar of Sockburn, her father, a vicarage.

It was launched with a garden fete at Sockburn Hall, in August 1910.

In contrast to Sunday in the Sockburn Hall garden, the 1910 Darlington and Stockton Times reported: “The weather was ideal for the function. A genial summer’s day came as a welcome visitor in a season which has caused many disappointments, and people journeyed from Croft, Darlington, Dinsdale, Yarm, and all round the countryside until there was a large assembly.”

To celebrate its centenary, Bertha’s book has been republished. It is companion to a new book – Tapestry of Time – of verses, photographs and history inspired by that Sockburn atmosphere.

Among the private peninsula’s many attractions are a ruined 1834 manor house and overgrown pleasureground, a tumbledown Saxon church and graveyard, and intriguing grassy lumps and bumps which suggest untold archaeological stories.

The books are £5 and £9 or together for £12.50. They are available from the restoration project’s website, sockburnhall.co.uk or via email sockburn@gmail.com