A Second World War photo-album belonging to the Towers family of Darlington needs to be repatriated – can you help?

It was loaned to Mel Wallace Jnr who was writing about the extraordinary war service of his father, Mel Snr.

Mel Snr left school at 14 to become an apprentice joiner. He worked as a cabinet-maker for Binns in Darlington before joining up in October 1939, and serving through the whole war: he was evacuated from Dunkirk, he landed at Gold Beach on D-Day just 90 minutes after the first soldiers had waded ashore, he was at Operation Market Garden at Nijmegen, and he served with the 50th Division Royal Signals in Sicily, Egypt, Iraq, Libya.

Mel Wallace Snr with his Legion d'Honeur at River View care home in Darlington in 2018. Photograph: Stuart Boulton.

Mel Snr was 97 in 2018 when he received the Legion d’Honeur from the French government in his Darlington care home.

He died in 2020, which led Mel Jnr to write up his story. From somewhere, Mel Jnr acquired the scrapbook which appears to record the war service of Stan and Morris Towers, the sons of Mr and Mrs H Towers of Hargreaves Terrace in Darlington.

This may be Stan and Morris Towers, of Darlington, during the Second World War

It is thought that Stan survived the war while Morris did not – the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records the death of a Driver Maurice Towers of the 50th Division Signals (the same as Mel Snr) on August 11, 1944, aged 24 in France. He is listed as the son of Mr H Towers, although his wife is given as living in Somerset.

Mel Jnr had just about completed his book when he died in November.

Now his son, James, is really keen that the Towers family is reunited with their scrapbook. Can you help in any way? Please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk

A regimental photo from the Towers scrapbookFour servicemen, in the Towers scrapbook: is that one of the brothers on the right?On duty, from the Towers scrapbook

It looks like one of the Towers brothers joined the AA as a patrolman after the warA dancehall band, from the Towers scrapbook. Can you help us return it to its rightful owners?

 

ROSS SMITH emails from Adelaide in Australia, attaching a picture of a jug – perhaps a whisky water jug – dated about 1906 which says "Cockerton's" on its side beneath a picture of a cockerel. He's seeking any help in identifying or locating the jug's home, and so wondered whether "Cockerton's" might lead it back to Darlington. So has anyone ever heard of a pub or cafe that might have been called Cockerton's? Please let us know...

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