John North: The boy who watched the plane go down

SIXTY years to the day after Cyril Barton earned a posthumous VC - "gallantly completing his last mission in the face of almost impossible odds" - his courage will be remembered at a moving North-East ceremony next Wednesday.

The story is a sequel to last week's column, in which we revealed plans for a service this Sunday at the former RAF base at Skipton-on-Swale, near Thirsk, to mark the air battle over Nuremberg from which 95 of 795 British bombers never returned.

"Ninety five out of 795 mightn't sound much if you say it quickly, but I can tell you it was pretty hairy that night," says 82-year-old Len Lambert, Barton's navigator.

Attacked by Luftwaffe night fighters, their Halifax had suffered major damage, wrecking - among much else - the internal intercom. Misunderstanding the emergency light code, Len Lambert and two other crew baled out over Germany and were captured. "For months," he says, "we didn't know that Cyril and the others had completed the mission and got home."

Pilot Officer Barton dropped the bomb load himself, then without a navigator tried to head back to RAF Burn, near Selby, using only a small compass and a flight map strapped to his leg.

Off course, crippled and desperately short of fuel, the first lights he saw were of the colliery village of Ryhope, south of Sunderland.

Alan Mitcheson, then just 11, not only vividly remembers that late March dawn but has turned his dining room in Silksworth into a "virtual memorial" to Cyril Barton - a hero he never met.

Alan's 19-year-old brother was killed in the D-Day landings a few weeks later. "I thought the world of my brother and I sort of paired him and Cyril together," he says. "They both left an everlasting impression on my mind."

The all-clear having sounded about 5.30am, Alan and his parents had just left the Andersen shelter at the bottom of the garden when he identified the sound of another approaching aircraft - one of ours, but in trouble.

Fighting to avoid the densely populated village, and to control his plane, Barton demolished the last house in a miners' terrace before crash landing the Halifax into a nearby hillside.

"It went over the houses at no more than 100 feet, banked to the left and then went down over the houses in front of me," says Alan, subsequently an airman himself.

Wreckage was scattered for hundreds of yards. The three remaining crew survived; the pilot died a few hours later in the nearby Cherry Knowle hospital. George Heads, a Ryhope miner, was also killed after being struck by the aircraft's tail on his way to work.

Len Lambert, now in Ponteland, near Newcastle, recalls an "extraordinary ordinary man", a good friend who'd only have soft drinks in the pub and who kept his deeply held religious beliefs to himself. After Pilot Officer Barton's final mission, however, his family were given a last letter which revealed that he had no fear of death. "I have trust in Christ my saviour."

Len heads a party from the North-East Air Crew Association to the service at 11am at Ryhope war memorial; Alan Mitcheson will lay a wreath of red, white and blue carnations with a VC centrepiece on behalf of Cyril Barton's three surviving sisters before guiding a tour around the much changed crash site - and the housing estate named Barton Park two years ago.

He'd campaigned for years for greater recognition for Barton's gallantry before the war memorial plaque was unveiled in 1984.

"At first the council wouldn't do it because they said he didn't belong to the area. I was totally devastated; as if it mattered where he came from.

"It was the only VC won by No 4 Group Bomber Command. I'll tell you this; they didn't give them out willy-nilly."

AIRCRAFT enthusiast David Thompson in Eagescliffe, one of those who pointed us towards the Cyril Barton story - thanks also to Harry Watson in Darlington - seeks help with another piece of plane spotting, though these no longer leave the ground.

David's helping compile a volume called Wrecks and Relics - "a bit of an anoraks book, really. People tend to think you're some sort of an idiot when you show an interest in an aeroplane that doesn't fly." At any rate, he believes that someone in the Richmond area may be restoring a "very rare" Avro 504 floatplane, dating from the Great War, and that in Harrogate there may be a Lightning jet fighter in someone's back garden.

"Weighing in at 40,000lbs and 55 feet long, it's not the sort of thing you can keep from prying eyes," he says.

David, good bloke, is on 01642 866362 - "and before anyone asks," he adds, "I only want to photograph them."

THE incomparable Harry Whitton from Thirsk sends a copy of his video of Skipton-on-Swale's 50th anniversary "Nuremberg" reunion and service. Sunday's service begins next to the old control tower at 1.30pm.

The video features wonderful recollections from a Canadian squadron leader called Pierce, roused from his 3am slumbers by an insistently ringing telephone next to his bed in the control tower.

"What on earth's the matter?" demanded Pierce of the little night shift telephone operator in the room next door.

"It appears we are being bombed and strafed, sir," said she.

Another snippet reveals that even the parish pump on Skipton village green was chained down. "The Canadians," says a voice, "would take absolutely anything home."

An increase in volume

LAST week's column noted the tenth anniversary of Darlington Lions Club's second hand bookshop in Blackwellgate. Their volume, as it were, has subsequently increased considerably. On Tuesday evening, the Lions also presented a £500 cheque to Darlington mayor Ron Lewis in memory of Richard Parker and in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. The shop, they said, had had everything from an 1830 Bible to a Shirley Temple annual, and even several doubtful publications from the "bottom drawer". Innocents abroad, it seems they meant top shelf.

The Lions will also have a second hand book stall in Darlington market on April 17, with proceeds to St Teresa's hospice.

* The Lions Club holds its fourth annual charity walk, based on Reeth, on May 2 - five, nine or 15 miles, fully waymarked, for a charity of the walker's choice. Details from Geoff Heeley, 01325 488321.

The bongie dilemma and other crucial theological questions

THE Bishop of Durham has a fan from afar, and now that he has a new go-kart - the admirer, not the bishop - the admiration is more fervent than ever. It is a fascinating little story, and we may not have heard the last of it.

On November 2, at Hamsterley, his first parish Sunday since his enthronement, the Rt Rev Tom Wright held before his village congregation a letter he had received from "David, age eight and a half" in Greater Leys, Oxford.

"Dear Archbishop" it began - flattery being what it is - "if more people pray for the same thing, is God more likely to answer?"

If so, added David, could the bishop please pray that he got a go-kart for Christmas.

Go-kart duly delivered, Bishop Tom has again heard from a grateful David, who may now even be nine. His next question is no less perceptive, nor theologically crucial.

Sanjeet has stolen David's bongies - that's Sanjeet in the drawing; "bongies" are apparently marbles - doesn't give a "dam" but still wants David to hang out with him.

"Should I," asks David, "forgive someone if they aren't sorry?"

Bishop Tom has yet to reply, though he used the letter the other day to illustrate a little talk at Middleton St George primary school, near Darlington. "It was a delight to see the children sitting on the floor puzzling over it," he says.

There are two other puzzles: what will his eventual answer be - "he needs to let go of it, that's the crucial thing" - and whether or not the Bishop of Durham might be the victim of a serial hoaxer, a sort of episcopal Henry Root with another book in the offing?

Bishop Tom is dismissive. "I have about a ten per cent suspicion that there is an adult standing behind. The questions are succinct and clearly put, but it could easily be a bright six or seven-year-old.

"I remember when I was eight or nine writing an essay which I rather enjoyed at school and the teacher writing to my parents asking them to stop helping. I was extremely cross about it, and so were they."

David doesn't give a surname, which makes resolution of these complex matters a little more difficult. Even now, however, cohorts of distinguished journalists - a junior reporter from the Oxford Mail, at any rate - are on their way to Greater Leys.

Forgive and forget? We hope to have more next week.

DR David Jenkins, the last but one Bishop of Durham, was at Darlington Memorial Hospital this week for a routine out-patient's appointment.

"What's your religion?" asked the receptionist, clearly failing to recognise one of the region's best known faces. "Pardon?" said Dr Jenkins. "Are you religious?" persisted the clerk. "Oh very," said the ever-mischievous Dr Jenkins, who'll be 80 next January.

Finally asked his denomination; the retired bishop feigned thoughtfulness. "I think you'd better say Church of England."