GUNNER George Henry Grainger was one of three former servicemen present at the unveiling of war memorials in Cross Roads Park in 1921.

He, Sam Williams and Robert Ashton were named on the memorial tablets alongside comrades who had died in the Great War the previous decade.

Amazingly George, already a soldier when war broke out in 1914, had survived the entire four years of fighting.

During his service in France the Royal Field Artillery veteran had been posted missing, suffered myalgia and diarrhoea, and was diagnosed with a disorderly action of the heart as a result of his experiences.

George was born in Rainton in 1883, growing up in Ripon, Carleton and Steeton before joining the army in 1902 at the age of 18.

The following year he was confined to barracks for 10 days after creating a disturbance in the town of Fermoy near his barracks at Kilkenny in Ireland. Two years later he was treated for gonorrhoea.

George transferred to the Army Reserve in 1910, moving to the family home in Sutton, becoming a grindstone minder at a local loom makers, and marrying Elizabeth Corcoran the following year.

Following the birth of a son and daughter, George was mobilised at the outbreak of war in 1914.