A CONTROVERSIAL author and broadcaster will talk about the execution of three DLI soldiers during the First World War, this week.

Julian Putkowski's talk on Saturday marks the 86th anniversary of the shooting of Sergeant Will Stones, of Crook, County Durham, Lance Corporals Peter Goggins, of South Moor, County Durham, and John McDonald, of Sunderland.

They were executed for "shamefully losing their weapons in the presence of the enemy".

The men were in the bantam division, made up of short men, in the 19th Battalion serving on the Western Front near Arras.

The charge arose from an incident in which a patrol about to leave the British trenches was ambushed by Germans.

Stones threw his rifle across the trench so he could get away and warn the rest of the battalion, as his officer had ordered him.

Mr Putkowski has dug into forgotten and sometimes deliberately buried aspects of the British Army during the First World War, especially the executions of 350 British and Empire troops.

He has spoken each year at the dli, formerly the DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery, at Aykley Heads, Durham City, since 1993.

The executions will feature in his talk about the bantam division.

He said: "It was composed of men who had originally been rejected by the Army at the beginning of the war because they were too short.

"A combination of heavy casualties and grassroots patriotism forced it to change its mind and by the end of 1916, the British Army included 20 battalions of physically robust soldiers of short stature - or bantams."

The talk starts at 2pm and tickets cost £3.50, £2.50 for concessions and £1.50 for season ticket holders.