STARTFORTH church on its plateau above the River Tees on the outskirts of Barnard Castle is so engulfed by trees that even its 90ft spire is lost among the leaves.
A church has occupied this spot since Norman times, but the current incarnation is Victorian, built in 1863 by a stonemason whose angel-topped memorial to his wife, who died in childbirth, dominates the churchyard’s high ground as it slopes down to the river.
The memorial is surrounded by other headstones and monuments, some dating back to the centuries when the low Norman church stood on the plateau.
If only these stones could speak, what stories would they tell?
What about the murder in 1813 of a 19-year-old orphan girl by someone unknown whom her memorial describes as a “sanguinary villain”?
What about the Horse Guard who died at the Battle of Beaumont-en-Cambrésis, when 50,000 French and British troops clashed in 1794. His stone says that he “fell in the service of his countryman (in an) engagement in which the French army was defeated and “his body was interred in the field of battle, attended, honoured and lamented by every officer with the regiment”.
And what would they tell us about the events of September 22, 1863, just a couple of months after the Victorian church had been completed when Thomas Sowerby, 76, married Catherine Tinker, 86.
Newspapers across the north reported how Catherine had “previously been blessed with two husbands”.
And they said: “The event called forth a strong demonstration on the part of the villagers, who crowded the neighbourhood of the church to such an extent as to render it necessary for the police to clear the way into the church for the passage of the wedding party.”
If only the stones could speak and tell us why this matrimonial scandal so enraged local sensibilities that the constables had to make a path for the happy couple so they could progress – or perhaps, given their Bidenesque age, totter uncertainly – from the lychgate through the old headstones and into the new church.
Some of the stories, though, hidden among the stones can be told…
“WHEN I was a very young boy, my mother would tend the grave of one of her good friends in Holy Trinity churchyard in Startforth, and I was dragged along as well,” writes Peter Holmes of Barnard Castle, following Memories 683 when we told of the 80th anniversary of the Victoria Cross-winning self-sacrifice of Canadian airman Andrew Mynarski.
“One particular headstone always moved me. It is that of a young Canadian pilot.
“I thought how sad that he was buried so far away from his home and family.”
It is a Portland Stone memorial to a man who died on active service and even today, more than 80 years after it was placed among Startforth’s yew trees, it stands out as whiter and cleaner than all of others around because for decades it was tended by the lover who caused the Canadian to be buried so far from home.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone is dedicated to Pilot Officer Albert Lawrence Logan – known as “Larry” to his friends – who was killed in a plane crash a few miles away on March 1, 1942. He was only 22.
He came from Beamsville, Ontario, which today has a population of 13,000 (about twice the size of Barnard Castle).
Beamsville was founded by Jacob Beam after the American Revolution. He was loyal to the British crown, and so when the Americans won their independence in 1776, he moved from New Jersey to start his own town in Canada where he could pledge his obedience to King George III of Great Britain.
Perhaps it was this history of loyalty that encouraged Larry, the Beamsville clerk with the Canadian Bank of Commerce, to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force on October 16, 1940, only a year after the Second World War had broken out in faraway Europe.
He won his wings in April 1941 and by December 1941 had been posted to 122 Squadron based at RAF Scorton, a satellite airfield of RAF Catterick on flat land a couple of miles from Richmond.
A volunteer at their airbase was Jean Norton, a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, whose father, Arthur, ran a glove factory in Barnard Castle.
And so boy met girl.
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Larry, the tall, good looking Canadian, became a regular visitor at the Norton family home of Fair Lawns in Abbey Lane, which is just a few hundred yards up Church Bank from Holy Trinity.
At the end of February 1942, having been based at Scorton for three months, Larry had two pieces of news for Jean.
Firstly, he had been called to receive vaccinations on March 1 – a sure sign that he was about to be posted overseas.
Secondly, on the afternoon of the same day, he had been scheduled for a formation flying exercise over Teesdale so she should look out for him flying by Startforth and he’d give her a wingtip waggle.
On March 1, having had his injections, he took off from Scorton at 3.40pm and joined up with his section leader over Scotch Corner and, in formation, the two Spitfires headed west, following the River Tees on one side and the A66 on the other.
There had been light cloud cover at Scorton but as the pair of planes approached Barnard Castle, the weather closed in. The section leader decided that the clouds were too low for a formation ordered that the exercise be aborted. He turned back and safely headed for home.
But Larry had promised Jean.
So, using Egglestone Abbey as a marker, he flew on for just a few seconds longer. Jean and her sister Pat, playing tennis in the garden of Fair Lawns, saw a Spitfire as it went thundering over, on time, and then turned towards the south and disappeared into the low cloud.
How her heart must have jumped for joy. Her airman flying low over her house…
But moments later, at about 4pm and at the top of the dale less than two miles away, people on the A66 saw a Spitfire fly low over the road crash into a field at Dent House Farm, Brignall, just behind what is today the Cross Lanes farm shop and restaurant.
Several rushed to the pilot’s aid, but it was no use. As he had crashed, he had sustained a severe blow to the head and was dead, still strapped into his cockpit.
It was, of course, Larry.
The official report into the accident blamed the weather, saying that it was presumed that the pilot had become disorientated in the low cloud and didn’t have the height to recover when he saw the ground coming up to meet him.
It did not mention low flying, and nor did it explain why the section leader had been able to turn safely for home while Larry had continued onwards…
That week’s Teesdale Mercury told the story in a paragraph.
It said: “Larry Logan, aged 22, who was accidentally killed at Cross Lanes, Barnard Castle, early this month, was a Canadian, all his relatives living in Canada. He was a likeable lad and there was a representative gathering at the interment in Startforth churchyard on March 5, the cost of the funeral being borne by Mr AH Norton, of Fair Lawns, Abbey Lane, Startforth. The burial service was conducted by the Rev CF Gittens, acting vicar of Startforth, and wreaths were sent by friends, of whom he had made quite a number during his short visits to the district.”
On behalf of his grief-stricken daughter, Mr Norton had made strong representations to the authorities that Larry’s body should not be buried in a military cemetery such as Stonefall in Harrogate, where many Canadian airmen, such as Darlington’s hero, William McMullen, lie. Instead, he should be buried at Startforth where Jean could look after him.
Mr Norton even paid to ensure Larry received an appropriate farewell, and the service was attended by many members of the Scorton squadron who afterwards paid their respects to Jean at Fair Lawns.
And for the rest of her life, Jean did tend the grave, even after she found happiness and got married.
In 2006, after Jean had died, her sister, Pat, told The Northern Echo’s Teesdale Talk column: “Larry was a lovely man and was the love of Jean's life. I'm sure they would have married if he had not been killed. We were all devastated when he died.
“We were also visited by other Canadians from his squadron. They were all really fine men. "
His comrades, who had direct experience of the medical preparations for their forthcoming posting abroad, suggested that it may have been a side effect of that morning’s vaccinations that caused Larry to black out and lose control over Brignall.
To magnify the tragedy, Pat said that all those really fine men of 122 Squadron who had visited Jean at Fair Lawns were posted abroad soon after the funeral, and only one returned.
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