THE events at Arnhem 80 years ago, where 41,000 Allied troops were landed behind enemy lines, were turned into the 1977 film, A Bridge Too Far, starring Dirk Bogarde, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O’Neal, Laurence Olivier and Robert Redford.

READ FIRST: HOW A DARLINGTON GLIDERMAN DIED AT ARNHEM 80 YEARS AGO THIS WEEKEND

Redford played an all-American war hero, Major Julian Aaron Cook, commander of the US 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Regiment. He bravely, and successfully, led a daring daylight assault across the Waal River, heroically plunging into the water to drag his men’s damaged boats to the bank.

Major Julian CookFor his actions, Maj Cook, from New England, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, promoted to lieutenant colonel, and given the honour of being portrayed by one of America’s greatest actors on the silver screen.

His father was Nelson Pingrey Cook who, remarkably, was recorded on the night of the 1901 census as staying at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Spennymoor. He was a commercial traveller, who also seems to have been promoting baseball as he went.

A family story says that he visited Bishop Auckland and had such a fine meal in the Wear Valley Hotel, in Newgate Street, that he demanded to give his complements to the chef in person.

Honora Gallagher of Coundon and VermontOut came the hotel cook, 26-year-old Honora Gallagher, a Coundon lass from a large Irish family.

Although the American traveller was ten years older, and despite Honora having a daughter from a previous relationship, they fell in love, and in 1902, the cook became a Cook as they married at St Wilfrid’s Church, Bishop Auckland.

They settled in Coundon and had four children, all of whom were given names beginning with J.

In 1909, they decided to return to Nelson’s home, a farm in Mounty Holly, in Vermont, where more sons came along, all given names beginning with J. Finally, in 1916, Julian was born.

During the Second World War, Julian took advantage of being stationed over here by visiting his family in south Durham on several occasions. A Bridge Too Far even shows him meeting one of them – his cousin – on the Arnhem battlefield.

He was Sergeant Harry Gallagher, of Coundon, who before the war was a shop assistant in Bishop. He joined the Irish Guards as a tank driver, and landed in Normandy after D-Day.

Robert Redford, right, as Major Julian Aaron CookThree months later in Operation Market Garden, his orders were to take his tank from Belgium into the Netherland and relieve the paratroopers who had dropped 60 miles away.

But as soon as the Guards crossed the border, their line of tanks came under attack near the Meuse-Escaut Canal. Nine tanks in front of Sgt Gallagher were destroyed, but he managed to reverse his to safety.

He then spent 90 minutes rescuing men from the stricken tanks while under fire – bravery for which he received the Military Medal.

So the meeting of the two decorated men from the same south Durham family gets a fleeting mention in the crowded 1977 film.

READ NEXT: AFTER 40 YEARS OF DEDICATION AND FUND-RAISING, THE HISTORIC GARDENS OF RAVENSFORD SAY FAREWELL THIS WEEKEND