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« on: Sunday 28 October 18 09:38 GMT (UK) »
I remember as a young lad in Blyth going to the remembrance service at the Cenotaph. In the sixties I went with my grandfather who was there remembering his friends and comrades from the first war and later in the early seventies I attended the service as part of 1000 Blyth Sqn ATC. As far as I knew then, none of my Blyth family of Mann and Murray were commemorated on any of the memorials, it never occurred to me that wider family with different surnames may be remembered. I have now been doing the family tree for a while and have learned of so many other surnames linked to my tree in the area.
A couple of days ago having watched an item on the TV about war memorials I checked the War Memorials Register on the Imperial war museum website for names on the Blyth cenotaph. I could only find a list of names for WWI and scrolling through, one surname jumped out, J Doran. I knew my Great grandmother was Eleanor Murray nee Doran and after a few checks through the tree and a quick bit of online research I decided that this was, John Doran the son of my great grandmother’s brother also John. Members of the Murray and Doran families came to Blyth from Whitehaven, my great grandmother and her family arriving in the 1890’s. John Doran (junior) looks to have come to Blyth in the first decade of the 20th century and was living with his aunt Catherine Kennedy at 22 Double Row, South Newsham at the time of the 1911 census. He married Dorothy Winship in Blyth in 1913 and he and Dorothy had two children, John George born 1914 and Harold born 1915. John a miner then enlisted joining the 8th battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. He was sadly killed in action, during the final advance into Picardy on the 10 October 1918, one month before the Armistice and is buried in the, Romeries Communal Cemetery Extension, Romeries, Department Du Nord France.
As I researched John, I discovered information about his son, John George, who in 1939 was living with his widowed mother Dorothy and brother Harold in Freehold Street, Blyth he was a hospital c scheme collector and a special constable. John George then enlisted into the 9th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers and from my limited research, I think he was probably in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 and became a prisoner of war. It then appears he was one of the 61000 allied POW’s used as forced labour on the construction of the Siam-Burma “Death” railway. John George died in Burma, on the 1 Sep 1945 and is buried in the Thanbyazat War Cemetery, Myanmar (Burma). His address at probate was given as 4 Hambledon Street Blyth.
I assume John George is remembered on the WW2 memorial at Ridley park, would someone be able to confirm this please?
A double tragedy for Dorothy, having lost her husband in the first world war and her son in the second. I believe her second son Harold also died relatively young but did have children. Indeed, some reading this on Rootschat may be directly related to John and John George and may be able to add more to their stories.
No doubt many members of Rootschat will have relatives named on cenotaphs around Northumberland, but I wonder how many on here, have like me, have been to a remembrance service in their home town and or looked at the names on the cenotaph and did not realise they have a connection to one of them?
For me I have started to put two stories together and I have proudly added the names of John Doran and John George Doran to my family tree.
Lest We Forget.
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