A POWERFUL and poignant exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme opens tomorrow (Friday, March 24. Somme 1916: From Durham To The Western Front shows how ordinary people from the North-East laid down their lives during the First World War. Gavin Havery reports.

GRAINY images of a stern army chaplain and a British Tommy greet visitors entering the first gallery and immediately you are transported back in time.

They are Reverend Cyril Lomax, the Oxford graduate, who wrote vivid letters about his experiences with 8th Battalion Durham Light Infantry and Bowburn miner Michael Lowery.

The pitman, who enlisted as a Private with the 25th Battalion Tyneside Irish and became a Lance Corporal, was killed, aged 24, on the first day of the Somme.

He was one of thousands of young men cut to ribbons by German machine guns in No Man’s Land amid the senseless slaughter of one of history’s bloodiest battles.

The six month exhibition at Palace Green Library, near Durham Cathedral, tells the story of the ordinary men of the North-East who made the ultimate sacrifice, fighting for their country in the fields of France during the First World War.

With hindsight, for many ordinary folk today, the idea of signing up take part in a bloody foreign war seems unthinkable.

But the circumstances facing the young men of the region in 1914, when the British Empire controlled a quarter of the globe, and the true horror of trench warfare was unknown, were very different.

Propaganda posters from the day help explain how the Government persuaded people to join up with their pals in droves.

There was also the real fear of being labelled a coward and cast out of their tight knit community if they did not.

Photographs show the recruits on training exercises, laughing, relaxing together and playing football, oblivious to the living hell that awaited them.

Authentic uniforms and standard issue kit, including a trench shovel and water canteen, are on display along with personal items such as a soldier’s shaving kit and snuff tin.

Visitors are then plunged into the true nature of the conflict on the Western Front with actual footage from the front line and displays of weaponry used by both sides.

As well as the Webley and Scott Brass Flare Pistol, British punch dagger, Webley Revolver, Rifle Grenade and Trench Club, there is also a German Mauser C-96, stick grenade and bayonet.

The most fearsome artefact is without doubt the Maschinengewehr 08, the German Army’s heavy machine gun, and it is difficult to look at it up close without imagining it rattling out bullets, taking lives.

James Ramsbotham, chairman of the DLI trustees, said: “The Somme being such a huge loss of life, there wasn’t a single community in County Durham that was not touched by it.

“Therefore, it is absolutely right that we commemorate and recognise it in the way we are doing with this exhibition.

“The DLI itself was at the core of that and so this is a super start to the new way in which we will be displaying DLI artefacts in the years to come.”

Before you exit the main gallery two quotes from people of the day leave a lump in the throat.

Chester-le-Street miner Jack Gilliand said: “It is a noble death that your son has died, and we know that the great sacrifice, which he has made in company with so many other good men, will not have been in vain.”

Private Charles Moss, of 18 DLI, said: “What a great pity it is impossible to estimate how much the country owes to the miners for the ultimate victor, and the good hearted manner of it.”