Tony Kearney tells what the Durham Pals - volunteer soldiers from across the region - were doing 100 years ago, in the build-up to their date with destiny: July 1, 1916, and the Battle of the Somme

WELL DRILLED: Australian soldiers take part in bayonet practice during the First World War

Pals train for Big Push

May 29 - June 21, 1916
TARGET: A Canadian field kitchen from September 1917. During the Durham Pals’ stay at Colincamps, German artillery scored a direct hit on D Company’s field kitchen, killing four horses and destroying the equipment

Under constant fire

May 14 - 20, 1916
DEPRESSING: A New Zealand field hospital in the woods at Bus Les Artois, where the Durham Pals were billeted after their first taste of life in the trenches

Licking their wounds

April 28 - May 6, 1916

A watery grave

April 24 - 28, 1916
FEARSOME: The explosion of the mine at Hawthorn Ridge on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The Durham Pals were stationed at Auchonvillers while the tunnels were being dug beneath Hawthorn Ridge

The woes of trench warfare

April 20 - 23, 1916
DEPRESSING: A New Zealand field hospital in the woods at Bus Les Artois, where the Durham Pals were billeted after their first taste of life in the trenches

Out of the trenches

April 3 - April 20, 2016
AT EASE: Soldiers from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment resting up during the Battle of the Somme

From sand to snow for Durham Pals

March 14 - 25, 1916
The 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry arrived in Port Remy on the banks of the River Somme in the early hours of March 14, 1916 on a bitterly cold night before marching through the town to their billets

To Somme by cattle truck

March 12 - 14, 1916
The SS Ivernia, which carried the Durham Pals from Egypt to France

Exodus from Egypt

March 2 - 11, 1916
In War Stories...
PROUD: The relatives of Archie White VC who attended the ceremony Pictures: Tom Wharton Photos
TO THE TOP: A sketch by Capt Robert Mauchley entitled "Attacking the Butte de Warlencourt"
WOUNDED: Patients and nurses at County Hall, Northallerton
A plaque, once screwed onto a wall at Eastbourne Methodist Church and now rededicated at St Herbert’s Anglican Church, containing the names of 15 men from east Darlington who died in the First World War. Picture: CHRIS BOOTH
STALLS: Children from local schools set up WW1 food stalls in Durham Market Place as part of Durham Farmers' Market Pictured Jackson Stevenson, Regan Bowman, and Robyn Pipe, from Easington Colliery Primary School. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT