Help sought to save First World War RAF building in BoroughbridgeBook unearths Ripon’s forgotten First World War heritageFamily of WWI soldier find where he was killed – by chance

The family of a missing Yorkshire soldier from the First World War has found out where he was killed – but only by chance. 

Joseph Cyril Verity was one of 13 children born at East Witton, and later lived at North Stainley. His family settled at Warren House Farm, Fearby, near Masham, but he soon emigrated to Canada to be a rancher. When war broke out in Europe, he joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles and was deployed to Flanders. He was killed, aged 30, at Passchendaele on November 1, 1917, but his body was never found. 

His name is inscribed, along with those of 6,927 other missing Canadians, on the Menin Gate, and last year the Passchendaele Museum in Belgium launched an online portal, called Names in the Landscape, that shows where more than 1,400 of them were killed or buried – with Joseph among them.

Joseph Verity was one of 13 children, pictured here with their parents.

Joseph Verity (back row, centre) was one of 13 children in a family that lived near Masham.

The museum recently sent a letter to his last known address in England, Warren House Farm, asking for more information about him. By pure chance, the current occupant of the farm, Gerald Broadley, is related by marriage to Joseph. 

Mr Broadley’s sister-in-law, Ruth Verity, lives near Kirkby Malzeard and is keeper of the family tree. She said: “Warren House Farm hasn’t been kept in the family – Gerald’s family just happened to take it over when Joseph’s family moved out in 1967. When he received the letter from the Passchendaele Museum, he recognised straight away who it was about, and my nephew brought it to me. It’s amazing, really.” 

The Verity family believe that Joseph was killed by sniper-fire, but have never known where. The museum researchers have found that it happened at a post called Dump House, on the front line north-east of Ypres. 

The Battle of Passchendaele, which became known for its appallingly muddy conditions, was fought from July to November 1917, for control of high ground south and east of Ypres. It is estimated to have claimed between 500,000 and 850,000 men on both sides.

Names in the Landscape is supported by the Flemish Government and Library and Archives Canada. 

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Watch First World War bomb detonated in Knaresborough

This is the moment that a First World War bomb was detonated in Knaresborough.

The unexploded bomb was found in the River Nidd during a weekly litter pick by Simon Briscombe, whose partner Rachel Wills owns the Watermill cafe.

The couple wrapped the bomb, which they initially thought to be a gas canister, in sandbags at their home and dialled 101. The bomb squad, police and firefighters rushed to their home at The Chase.

Their house, along with about 30 others on the estate, was immediately evacuated while the bomb was taken to a nearby field and a controlled explosion carried out. The A59 was closed for about two hours.

Local resident Piers Ballance shot the footage below of the detonation in his friend Sam Darnbook’s field off the A59, opposite the Toyota garage.

Mr Ballance said the road was closed from Goldsborough roundabout to Manse Lane while the controlled explosion was carried out.

He said:

“We saw several police officers and army personnel at the site of the detonation.

“The explosion surprised us all as we did not expect it to be as loud. We felt the shockwave go through us.”

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Meanwhile, Ms Wills said her and her partner were left in shock after finding the bomb.

She said:

“We’re still in shock. If Simon had known what it was he wouldn’t have moved it.

“The police were horrified because he brought it home in the car and there are a lot of speed bumps in Knaresborough. But we didn’t know what it was.”

Stray Views: Let’s get behind the Station Gateway

Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Station Gateway is best thing to happen to Harrogate for years

The Station Gateway plans are the first glimmer of hope I have felt in my seven years of living in Harrogate town (aka ‘my car’s bigger than your car’ Town).

A glimmer of hope that we just might have a lovely, friendly, safe, human, caring, bustling, fun town buried somewhere here. Buried beneath the surging, charging, horrific madness that is currently ‘our town’.

We have dual carriageways with parking down both sides. The humans lurk, unwanted, forgotten, ignored, often frightened, on a little strip of tarmac potentially a mere few metres from where they want to be. As for cycling. You’d have to be mad.

Nowhere have I seen a town so well-suited to walking, running, cycling and generally playing out, that instead chooses to destroy itself in deference to its rich, entitled, car-addicted populous.

The Station Gateway is just the start…

Ruth, Walker, runner, cyclist, mother and musician of Harrogate

Ripon needs a First World War walking tour

I read with interest your article about the installation of the memorial at Hell Wath nature reserve, which was the site of the WW1 army camp in Ripon.

I was born and grew up in Ripon and have spent a lot of my adult life there, but I had to ask a fellow walker for help to point me in the right direction to find it when we went to have a look at it. It would have been far easier if you had included directions on how to find it in your article.

It would also have been useful to have had more information there about the camp at Hellwath and its significance to WW1 history.

A walking route pointing out points of interest would be both interesting and educational to all age groups. Perhaps some of those metal figures could be placed in key areas of interest. Considering the great lose of life in WW1, it would be a fitting tribute to those that served and were billeted there. Most families were touched in some way by the war at the time, mine included.

Geoff Fletcher, North Stainley

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Time to deal with these dangerous gases

It’s been common practice for some time now to vent to the surface gases from land that has previously been a landfill site.

The gas that is emitted is typically methane (CH4), which we know to be significantly more dangerous to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2). Some studies rate it as 100 times more powerful a climate change gas.

There are sites in Harrogate that currently vent this gas to the atmosphere: Stonefall Park and parts of the Great Yorkshire Showground, amongst others.

Has the time come to deal with this harmful gas in a more environmentally friendly way?

Robert Newton, Pannal

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

Harrogate district soldiers given military burial 104 years after death

Two Harrogate district soldiers killed during World War One have finally been laid to rest today with full military honours.

Their bodies were among nine sets of human remains found during civil engineering works in the Belgium town of Beselare three years ago.

Archaeologists from the Flanders Heritage Agency subsequently discovered the remains of the trench, a bomb pit and a separate bomb pit outside the trench.

Eight of the nine bodies found inside the trench are believed to have died at the same time as the result of an explosion in October 1917. The ninth was found separately.

Through a combination of military research, anthropology and DNA, Ministry of Defence ‘war detectives’ managed to identify seven of the nine soldiers by name.

The men included 21-year-old Lance Corporal Stanley Blakeborough from Pateley Bridge and 28-year-old Private Harry Miller, who worked as a farm labourer in Burton Leonard.

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An eighth casualty, who remains unknown, is believed to have served with the same regiment (11th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers) whilst the ninth and final casualty is unknown by name or regiment.

The service in Belgium today. Credit: Ministry of Defence

Nicola Nash, from the Ministry of Defence said:

“After working on this case for nearly three years, it gives me an immense feeling of pride to see these men finally being laid to rest. It has been wonderful to share this emotional day with so many of the family members, who have travelled as far as Australia to attend.

“The sacrifice these men made will never be forgotten.”

Today’s service was organised by the MoD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre and was held at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Tyne Cot Cemetery near Ypres in Belgium.

The MOD war detectives also traced the relatives of some of the men, with five different families attending the service.

The Duke of Kent attended the service in his capacity as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Story of the lone Japanese First World War soldier buried in Ripon

A lone Japanese soldier is buried among the war dead at Ripon Cemetery.

Private Sannosuke Nishimura’s story reveals attitudes towards immigrants at the time, and how a pandemic cruelly cut short the lives of men who were returning from First World War battlefields.

Ripon resident and military historian Colin Oxley was in the cemetery and found a headstone of a soldier that bore the same surname as his unrelated wife Kazumi, who is from Japan, a country that had very little involvement in the war despite being an ally.

“I was a bit shocked to see the man had same surname as Kazumi.”

The couple used the internet to research how he came to be there and have shared what they discovered with the Stray Ferret.

Emigrated to Canada

Sannosuke was born in Fukushima, Japan, which at the time was a poor part of the country. 

His family, who most likely would have been farmers, emigrated to Canada in the late 1890s in search of a better life.

In their new home of Antelope, Saskatchewan, they were probably not welcomed with open arms as Japanese migrants regularly faced discrimination and racism.

Despite this, around 200 Japanese men volunteered to fight for Canada during the war.

Ripon residents Kazumi Nishimura and Colin Oxley

Ms Nishimura said:

“Discrimination against Japanese migrants was common. They were disallowed the vote and benefits of civil society”.

Sannosuke enlisted towards the end of the war in June 1918 and made the long sea journey to Europe.

There isn’t information on where his battalion was deployed during the war, but he made it out alive.

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The Spanish Flu

Following the end of the conflict, he travelled from France to the massive Ripon demobilisation camp for returning troops awaiting their passage back to Canada.

But in a cruel twist of fate, the troops brought to Ripon with them the deadly Spanish Flu, which ripped through the camp killing Sannosuke and six others. He was 24 years old.

Mr Oxley said.

“It was a disaster. They all came from France and were then shipped out across the Commonwealth spreading the flu. If it wasn’t for the war, it probably wouldn’t have spread like it did. They didn’t have air travel like with covid today.”

Sannusuke’s parents suffered greatly in the years after the war.

After Sannosuke’s mum died in the 1930s, the Canadian government took the Nishimura’s family home off them and sent his father to an internment camp in British Columbia where he died.

Japan was no longer an ally and 22,000 Japanese Canadians were locked up during World War Two in the name of national security.

Mr Oxley said:

“It was a terrible thing that happened, after their son fought in World War One.”

‘I hope he’s not forgotten’

Ms Nishimura said in Japan the war dead are not remembered like they are in the UK.

“They don’t really want to talk about it. War is a disaster history, it’s not celebrated like here.

“Remembrance Day here is fascinating.”

Mr Oxley and Ms Nishimura could not find any living relatives. His younger brother Frank died in 2000 at the respectable age of 94.

Ms Nishimura added:

“I hope his story won’t be forgotten.”