Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Pte. Richard Simm
British Army 12th Battalion, A Coy. Durham Light Infantry
from:55 School Terrace, South Moor, County Durham.
My Grandfather, Richard Simm, was born on the 10th October 1893 at number 7 Douglas Street, Stanley, County Durham. One of twelve children born to Joseph and Sarah Jane Simm. At the age of 14 years he left school and started work as a coal miner at the local colliery.
At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he was the eldest son alive and he felt it was his duty to enlist. He joined the Durham Light Infantry and served with A Coy the 12th Battalion.
The Battalion arrived in France on the 26th August 1915. It saw action on the Somme at Pozieres in July 1916 and Le Transloy in October. In 1917 During the third Ypres he fought at Messines. In November 1917 they where sent to Italy and fought in the battles at Piave and Vittorio Veneto.
In 1919 my Grandfather was discharged and he went back to been a Coal Miner. He married his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth Raine on the 28th June 1919. They had three daughters, one of them my mother, Elizabeth Simm. In the Second World War my Grandfather served as a Sergeant in the Home Guard at South Moor, County Durham. He died on the 5th January 1983 at the South Moor Miners Hospital aged 89 years.
