The Diary is looking for some detectives among the readers this week. This photo has been submitted by Mrs. Wendy Poxon, from Killyleagh, and shows members of the band of the First Battalion Royal Irish Rifles. The bugler lying on the ground on the second left is Willie Tweedie, from Downpatrick, who was her uncle’s grandfather and was killed during World War 1. Mrs. Poxon wants to know when and where the picture was taken and perhaps any other information about her soldier relative. Anyone who can help is asked to get in touch with the Diary.


From the pages of the
Down Recorder,
September 1, 1940

NEWCASTLE — The Newcastle pleasure season, ending today, has been blighted by the war. Of that, alas, there can be no doubt. No big golf or tennis tournaments, no English or Scots to create the usual gaiety whirl, few residential visitors, many apartments unlet.
Last Saturday saw the departure of Jock Elmore and his pierrots. Supported by artistic talent on the part of the military, they did certainly provide a rich measure of light music, fun and drollery. The ‘tanner Thursday evening train services, enabling folk in the neighbouring towns to spend a few hours amid surroundings the beauty of which never palls, were very popular. Nor was there any noticeable fall-off on the number of day excursions. But the decline in the receipts from municipal recreation undertakings speaks for itself, to say nothing of lodging house budgets.
SAINTFIELD — A well-sinker, said to be 96, William Lyons, living alone as an old-age pensioner in one of the Rural Council’s cottages at Craignasasonagh, pathetically enough, has met his death by misadventure.
That he was stone deaf was a factor in the accident on Tuesday. Looking at a field of corn, he did not see until it was upon him James E. Shaw’s Morris goods van, reversing on a side road nearby. Afterwards the van had to be moved forward in order to release one of his legs. Dr. Dickie was sent for and rendered first aid. Then, Lyons was removed to Lisburn district hospital, where he succumbed shortly after midnight. An open verdict was returned at the inquest.
BALLYNAHINCH — Soldiers of course there are in Ballynahinch, city evacuees too, and trained A.R.P. personnel. And the people are now all equipped with respirators. What of air raid shelters? The nearest are at Dromore, which boasts of three. This is spoken of as ‘not a vulnerable area.’ But one wonders what is really a vulnerable area when one reads of the Nazi airmen’s killings in Wexford, the indiscriminate bombing of British residential districts, the wrecking of church buildings, the machine-gunning of children playing on the beach.
PORTAVOGIE — A six year-old Sydenham evacuee, Wilhelmina Hamilton, staying with her grandmother, Mrs. Agnes Riddick, at Happy Days Cottage, Portavogie, was fatally injured at the weekend in collision with a motor-bicycle ridden by John Brown, farmer, of Ringboy. As stated at the inquest, a group of children had scattered, but Hamilton at the last moment tried to rejoin companions on the other side of the road, giving the cyclist no chance of avoiding her. In returning a verdict, death from fracture of the skull, the jury expressed the opinion that no blame could be attached to Brown.
DOWNPATRICK — After the summer holidays the two secondary schools in Downpatrick re-open on Monday, and the technical instruction classes resume on the 16th. But the new session cannot be like any other session, and who knows how it might be interrupted. Teachers in Down High School are members of the Home Guard, night-watchers formed to co-operate with the military in the repelling of enemy invasion..
SLIEVE CROOB — The Slieve Croob region, beneath which Down’s unnumbered breasts billow to the horizon, and streams wind to the sea, figured in the radio broadcast, ‘The Land We Defend,’ on Wednesday evening. Going along the well-worked path that leads to the altar; work in the factory and field; at the stile; friendly intercourse over the half-door and at the smithy, huckstering at the market place, amid animal bleats and bawls; a sociable drink in the village pub - the whole rural scene was imaginatively evoked, largely by verse and music. Of native dialect there was a bare minimum. The pervading note was that our way of life, free and unregimented, unlike the German, is worth fighting for to the last.
QUOILE — While a number of children were playing at Quoile quay on Sunday evening, one, Peter Trainor, aged five, stumbled over the edge into ten feet of water. Without waiting to cast off any of his clothing, Harry Gifford, a pupil of Down High School, and an expert swimmer, who was nearby, dived in to the rescue. The little fellow as brought ashore and after artificial respiration had been applied was able to go home.
FARRANFAD — Yesterday Michael Croskery, a Farranfad labourer, while pedal-cycling home in company with two others from Downpatrick labour exchange, ran into the ditch at Bonecastle school and was rendered unconscious. He was removed to the County Infirmary. His condition is critical.
KILLOUGH — In St. Stephen’s Church, Belfast, on Wednesday, Rev. Samuel B. Crooks, formerly of Killough, was instituted at incumbent in succession to Rev. W. J. Dunlop, retired. Among the clergy who took part were Dr. MacNiece, bishop of the diocese, Archdeacon Shirley and Canon Louis Crooks.
PORTAFERRY — The late Mr. John Kirkpatrick left £1,000 to Portaferry Presbyterian Church for the upkeep of the buildings, and £200 at the discretion of the kirk session.
EVACUEES — Over 1,500 children and adults were voluntarily dispersed from Belfast on Thursday, this being the final phase of the scheme put into effect early in July, when over 7,000 children and adults were moved to reception areas.
In all, 150 children with 20 relatives arrived in Downpatrick by rail, whence Mr. R. J. Carr, the efficient clerk of the union, assisted by a bevy of school teachers, despatched them by bus to homes in Ballynahinch, Crossgar, Killyleagh, Killinchy, Ardglass and Killough..
KNOCK — A propos last week’s par on Downpatrick talk of the concern of Catholics in Ireland, North and South, about the future of the faith-healing Lourdes pilgrimages, now that France lies under the swastika, a Dublin correspondent says that lately a village called Knock, in Co. Mayo, has acquired popularity as a shrine, and remarkable scenes are witnessed there.