Fig.1 Brigadier-General J W Sandilands From The History of the 35th Division  in the Great War. L-C H.M. Davson

Brigadier-Gneral Sandilands decorated Jack Wilson with the Military Medal – ‘in the field’ along with three others. He received the Military Medal. Jack described the scene as ‘a square’ with a table in the middle.

There are a couple of likely times for the week long stop in a pill-box without relief – around 11th October when the Steenbeck flooded, after the initial attack on Houthulst Forest when the heaven’s opened, or in November when once again the Broembeck was flooded. He describes the Steenbeck as a ‘lake of mud’ and to reach Egypt House at one time as requiring you to wade through ‘the puddle’.

Fig. 2. A studio photo taken soon after joining the Durham Light Infantry, March 1915 at Billy Wilson’s Photography Studio, Consett before transfer to the Machine Gun Corps or ‘Suicide Squad’

This picture used in the Consett local paper when Jack Wilson was awarded the Military Medal

Fig. 3. Clip from the Consett Gazette in late 1917

(This photograph from a faded original cutting from the paper originally kept by Jack’s mother Sarah Wilson nee Nixon)