Every year, people in East Anglia commemorate the sacrifice of a County Durham soldier in the First World War.

Now, nearly 90 years after his death, the hero's only surviving relative has discovered his remarkable story. Dan Jenkins reports.

WHEN Thomas Hunter died, thousands of miles away from his adopted home and hundreds from his native North-East, his story touched the hearts of all who had cared for him.

There is a bronze statue of the soldier in Peterborough Cathedral and his grave in the city cemetery is marked with a huge Celtic cross. Every year since his death in 1916, hundreds of people gather to pay their respects to the man they call the Lonely Anzac.

But the Australian soldier was really a former miner from the small village of Medomsley, near Consett, in County Durham.

For decades, no one in the North-East knew his story until amateur historian John Harvey began to research Sergeant Hunter's life.

Hunter emigrated to Australia in 1910 and worked as a miner in the town of Broken Hill. When the First World War started, he enlisted and was sent to Egypt for training. In April, 1915, he was part of C Company, the spearhead in the bloody Gallipoli landings.

The Anzacs had to fight their way up towering cliffs under heavy fire from Turkish troops and sustained horrendous casualties. In May, Sgt Hunter was wounded and taken back to Egypt, where he recovered. By then, the Anzacs had cut their losses and withdrawn from Gallipoli.

But there was to be no respite. The survivors of the Turkish campaign, boosted by new volunteers from Australia, were sent to the Western Front. Sgt Hunter was with the Anzac force that attacked the village of Pozieres in July 1916, part of the Battle of the Somme.

He was seriously wounded during the assault - so badly that the front line medics sent him back to England. He was put on a train bound for a military hospital in Yorkshire. But his condition worsened and he was taken off at Peterborough.

For a few days, he slipped in and out of consciousness, then he died. But by then his story had spread like wildfire through the city - an Australian war hero who was wounded on the battlefield and died thousands of miles from home.

The city's mayor organised a funeral with full military honours and thousands turned out on the day to watch the Lonely Anzac on the journey to his final resting place. Shops closed and the cathedral bell tolled as the horse-drawn hearse made its way through the streets. His grave was covered in hundreds of posies of fresh flowers.

When the mayor started an appeal for a headstone on Sgt Hunter's grave, more than 2,000 people subscribed - raising enough for a ten foot high Celtic cross. There was even enough left over for a bronze memorial statue weighing a quarter of a ton, that still stands in Peterborough Cathedral today.

The full story is told in a new book, The Lonely Anzac - A True Son of Empire, by John Harvey.

"This sort of treatment for an army sergeant is astounding," says Mr Harvey. "There was such an outpouring of grief at the time. By this time in 1916, Peterborough had lost 500 fighting men, who were all buried where they fell - none came home.

"Thomas Hunter was the first real opportunity for people in Peterborough to express their grief. What is more amazing is that this has carried on every year since."

Hundreds still gather in Peterborough on Anzac Day - April 25 - each year, to pay tribute to Sgt Hunter's sacrifice. The stone cross on his grave is draped in the Australian flag and the Union Jack and a special prayer is said and an officer from the Australian High Commission still attends the memorial service every year.

The infirmary where he died later became the city museum and its staff believe Sgt Hunter is still there in spirit.

"Some of the museum staff are convinced his ghost is stalking the corridors," says Mr Harvey. "Furniture has been moved around and, in the room where he died, the temperature is known to suddenly drop."

Mr Harvey is himself a former North-East soldier. He lived on Tyneside while he worked for Unilever and served in the Territorial Army with 103 First Newcastle Field Squadron, Royal Engineers. On his retirement, he moved to Peterborough. It was through the city's British Legion that he first discovered Sgt Hunter's amazing story.

After nearly a decade of research, he discovered that the Anzac was actually from County Durham and began looking for surviving relatives in the North-East. He found the hero's great-great niece, Jean Jones, in Newton Hall, Durham - just a few miles away from Sgt Hunter's home in Medomsley.

His search bore fruit when he contacted the church in Medomsley and some of the congregation passed on his message to Mrs Jones, born Jean Hunter.

Her husband, Lawrence Jones, says: "We started researching the Hunter family tree about 20 years ago. We got stuck and there were some branches we never followed up. We left word in Medomsley and that was how Mr Harvey found us. You can imagine our surprise when we found we had a genuine war hero in the family."

Mr Jones has now taken up the baton and gives talks on the Lonely Anzac across the North-East. "It is a fascinating story and we feel it should be told in the place he came from," he says.

Born in Medomsley in 1880, Thomas Hunter went to the village church school before starting work in the nearby coal mines, aged 13. Despite the long hours at the coalface, he still found time to serve in the local militia and the Territorial Army, his last unit being the 4th Northumbrian Howitzer Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, based in Consett.

His mother died when he was a baby and he was raised by his aunt, Isobella, at Grange Farm, Medomsley. He does not appear to have been close to his father, George Burton Hunter, who was a farm labourer and miner and who fell on hard times.

George Hunter eventually ended up in the workhouse in nearby Lanchester and it was at this time that Thomas Hunter made the fateful decision to emigrate. He appears to have turned his back on his father - on all his Army papers, he declared himself an orphan.

But on his death, his few belongings were sent to his estranged father and seem to have disappeared almost straight away. The parcel included his medals, plus a silver pipe inscribed with the word Anzac, that was presented to all veterans of Gallipoli.

"His father probably took them across the road to a local junk shop and sold them for a few shillings," says Mr Harvey. "They have just disappeared into space. Someone out there has got them. Finding them would be like winning the Lottery."

But he says the effort in tracing the history of Sgt Hunter has been worth it. "I truly believe I know Thomas Hunter now."

* The Lonely Anzac - A True Son of Empire, is published by Chameleon Press and is available from (01778) 421038.