Two brothers from Tyneside joined up in Newcastle upon Tyne. The elder brother joined the Northumberland Fusiliers and the younger brother joined the Royal Irish Rifles (the Northumberland Fusiliers could not process the high number of Geordies signing up).Private James Stoves was killed on 1 July 1916 aged nineteen. He fell near Serre along with many Ulstermen. The Ulster memorial and stories of 1 July cement the story of the Ulster Division in the history of the Somme but little or no mention is ever made of the none Ulster born soldiers who fought with them James' brother Corporal Thomas Stoves was killed at the Battle of Arras a year later at Wancourt Tower "after fierce hand to hand combat". My father, their nephew, in 2015 remembers both the boys photographs being on prominent display in his grandparents house for years after the war. 

became my grandmother.

Trevor Avery