Smaller authority name: Thurgoland Parish Council
NOTICE OF PUBLIC RIGHTS AND PUBLICATION OF UNAUDITED ANNUAL GOVERNANCE & ACCOUNTABILITY RETURN
ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025
Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 Sections 26 and 27
The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/234)
NOTICE
1. Date of announcement______7th June 2025________________________(a)
2. Each year the smaller authority’s Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) needs to be reviewed by an external auditor appointed by Smaller Authorities’ Audit Appointments Ltd. The unaudited AGAR has been published with this notice. As it has yet to be reviewed by the appointed auditor, it is subject to change as a result of that review.
Any person interested has the right to inspect and make copies of the accounting records for the financial year to which the audit relates and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers, receipts and other documents relating to those records must be made available for inspection by any person interested. For the year ended 31 March 2025, these documents will be available on reasonable notice by application to:
(b) Avril Sturdy, 10 Rookery Way, Thurgoland S35 7BX (Clerk/RFO)
commencing on (c) __Monday 9th June 2025 _______________________
and ending on (d) ___Friday 18th July 2025 ________________________
3. Local government electors and their representatives also have:
· The opportunity to question the appointed auditor about the accounting records; and
· The right to make an objection which concerns a matter in respect of which the appointed auditor could either make a public interest report or apply to the court for a declaration that an item of account is unlawful. Written notice of an objection must first be given to the auditor and a copy sent to the smaller authority.
The appointed auditor can be contacted at the address in paragraph 4 below for this purpose between the above dates only.
4. The smaller authority’s AGAR is subject to review by the appointed auditor under the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 and the NAO’s Code of Audit Practice 2015. The appointed auditor is:
PKF Littlejohn LLP (Ref: SBA Team)
15 Westferry Circus
Canary Wharf
London E14 4HD
(sba@pkf-l.com)
5. This announcement is made by (e) Avril Sturdy (Clerk/RFO)
(a) Insert date of placing of the notice which must be not less than 1 day before the date in (c) below
(b) Insert name, position and address/telephone number/ email address, as appropriate, of the Clerk or other person to which any person may apply to inspect the accounts
(c) Insert date, which must be at least 1 day after the date of announcement in (a) above and at least 30 working days before the date appointed in (d) below
(d) The inspection period between (c) and (d) must be 30 working days inclusive and must include the first 10 working days of July.
(e) Insert name and position of person placing the notice – this person must be the responsible financial officer for the smaller authority
THURGOLAND PARISH COUNCIL
Unaudited Accounts 2024-2025 can be found under "Council" "Accounts".
Notice of conclusion of Audit will be posted once received from the External Auditors
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The Casualties from WW2
As we get nearer to remembering if sadly, not commemorating VE Day, I thought I would do an update on our fatal casualties.
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Kingsmill ESMONDE: DSO, VC
Eugene Esmonde was shot down and killed on February 12th 1942.
As a trained RAF and civilian pilot he, in January 1939, took command of 825 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm (RN) which consisted of fully equipped Fairey Swordfish torpedo aircraft nicknamed ‘Stringbags’ because of their fragile appearance ‘laced together’ with wires and struts as bi-planes. They were extremely manoeuvrable and had superlative, low range performance but lacked speed or effective long range.
By 1 st January 1942 Esmonde commanded a total of six three-man crews. On 3 rd February he was asked to take part in an Admiralty plan to prevent three German ships from leaving Brest, France and heading for the Baltic. This became known as The Channel Dash and was expected to take place at night and the following week when there was no moon. Esmonde indeed volunteered his Swordfish which based themselves at Manston Airfield, Kent, near The English Channel.
On the morning of 12 February information came through that the German ships were already on the move, accompanied by fighter planes, thus aborting any night time attack by the Swordfish. At this point Lt: Commander Esmonde could have withdrawn from what was essentially, a suicide mission. Then, he was promised an escort of five RAF Fighter Squadrons which swayed Esmonde into deciding to continue with the attack.
Though by 12.25 pm no escort had materialised Esmonde set off into the Channel from Ramsgate with each Swordfish armed with a single torpedo and a defence of a single, hand held, Lewis machine gun. Their objective was twenty-three miles out at sea (15 mins flying time). Only then did ten Spitfires (less than a quarter promised) join them as defensive escort.
At 12.50 pm the enemy was sighted and so were the Swordfish as the enemy opened fire creating a huge, splash barrier curtain. Esmonde’s plane received a direct hit but he continued his run and released his torpedo at 3,000 yards. This slid into the water and Esmonde’s Swordfish, engulfed in flames, crashed into the sea.
Of the six Swordfish none survived and only five men were rescued. Eugene Esmonde received a posthumous VC. In April, his body was washed up at the mouth of the R. Medway and he was buried at Gillingham cemetery. On his headstone the inscription reads: ’May God unite all minds in truth and all hearts in Charity’.
Though only briefly a Thurgoland resident it is fitting that he is remembered on our War Memorial. His name and honours, on a side, flower urn were added well after WW2.
OS Thomas BEET
Thomas Beet worked at Fox’s Steel works before ‘joining’ the Royal Navy. He was amongst a group of seventy-three RN sailors and Marines who were charged, onEaster Sunday, April 26th 1943 with taking two Landing Gun Craft from their construction site of Harland and Wolff’s in Belfast to Falmouth, Cornwall. These crafts, designed to land men, equipment and supplies were on trial runs to test their seaworthiness when they encountered rough seas. For some never explained reason they were denied safe haven at Fishguard Harbour and struggled on. They sent out a distress signal which was picked up by the HMS Rosemary which sailed to help them. The lifeboat at Angle was out of commission and the lifeboat at St David’s, contacted six hours later, took over two hours to reach the area. By this time it was dark and both craft had sunk and the Rosemary’s lifeboat, crewed with six volunteers, had also foundered. Only three men survived and though some bodies were recovered most, including OS Beet’s, are in the sunken craft –classed as war graves. He was nineteen years old and is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. There is also a more recent memorial at Freshwater Bay to this preventable tragedy.
Gunner John Robert STAGG
Based with a Light Anti-Aircraft Battery in the Forth Estuary, near Falkirk, Gunner Stagg was protecting shipbuilding at Grangemouth. He died, not on active service, but in a tragic accident when, on 21st January 1943, he had a motor cycle accident in which he ruptured his spleen, was taken to Base Hospital, Larbert where he died from ‘traumatic pneumonia’ following a splenectomy. He was aged 23. He had married Freda in 1940 and they had a little daughter, also called Freda, then only 4-5 months old. He is buried in HT, Thurgoland Cemetery with the inscription, ‘In Memory of my Dearest Husband. Yours the Beginning not the End’. It would be very pleasing if Freda herself read this or someone who knows her would let her know her father is not forgotten.
As the war progressed three other men died: two killed in action and one from ill-health though he had enlisted in 1939. Finally, in December 1945, LC Thawley died back in Thurgoland.
Private George WARTTIG was serving in the Royal Berkshire Regiment (on our War Memorial he is shown as being with the Green Howards, a Yorkshire Regiment). (Men were reassigned to different regiments when ‘shortfalls’ occurred.)
He had made an amphibious landing in Italy, South of Rome, at Anzio on January 22nd 1944 as the Allies advanced against German troops stationed in Italy. Anzio was in an area of marshy land.
The allies met with little resistance at first as their landing had taken the Germans by surprise but, the Allies’ Commander’s uncertainty to drive forwards meant the Germans could send reinforcements who soon had the allied troops pinned down as their guns focussed on the men on the beach-head. Conditions in the wintry weather were appalling with the men dug in against experienced and battle-hardened German soldiers. The fighting here has been likened to WW1 trench warfare with a war of attrition taking place.
George Warttig was killed on the beach-head on 26 February aged 29 and is buried at Anzio Beachhead Cemetery. On his headstone is the inscription: ’Rest Eternal grant him o Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon him’. He was married to Kathleen and was a son of William and Annis Warttig who lived at Hill Top Farm, Eastfield Lane.
Gunner Douglas MATTHEWMAN
Douglas Matthewman had enlisted in 1939 aged 19 in the Royal Artillery. At the time he was working as a clerk in Fox’s Steel Works and is remembered on their War Memorial as well as Thurgoland’s. He was, at the time of his death, living in Monkseaton, near Newcastle with his wife, Dorothy whom he had married in 1942.
Douglas had been discharged from the army due to ill health. He died in Edinburgh at The Royal Infirmary on 12 August 1943. The cause of death states, ‘multiple polyps of colon and rectum. Post-operative cardiac failure’. He was only 23. A possible reason for his death (apart from heart failure after the operation) is that these polyps were indicative of cancer. Douglas, before marriage, had been living at Belmont Terrace and Chapel Row, Cote Lane. He was the nephew of Gunner Bernard Matthewman, who had died in Suez, Egypt, post-World War 1 in 1919.
Private Stanley ILLINGSWORTH was only 20 when killed on D-Day +8 (14 June 1944) having landed, as part of the Durham Light Infantry on Gold Beach, 6 June in the second wave.
The DLI were part of the 50 th Division charged, as experienced troops, with spearheading the invasion of Normandy, France. They landed on the beaches and fought their way inland towards Caen and Bayeux.
The Normandy countryside (the Bocage) was a complex and interwoven landscape of fields, copses and deep, sunken ditches lined with hedges which made Artillery (tank attacks) difficult to deploy. Crack German troops, (Panzer Lehr troops) were used against the allies hence advancement was slow and hard won.
Private Illingsworth was killed near the R. Seulles, and is buried in Bayeux War Cemetery. His memorial reads, ‘In Loving Memory of my dear son killed in action. Always in our thoughts’.
For a more detailed account see, ‘The Gateshead Gurkhas: A History of the 9 th Battalion The Durham Light Infantry 1859 – 1967’. Harry Moses. County Durham Books.
Lance Corporal Arnold THAWLEY died on 25 December 1945. His is such a tragic story it would be hard to find one more so, even in a work of fiction.
Arnold was serving with the 3 rd Battalion Coldstream Guards who were in the N. Africa campaign. On 20 th June 1942 they were defending Tobruk which, after fierce fighting, was overrun by German forces and many allied soldiers were taken prisoner amongst them LC Thawley. Initially, he was shipped to Italy and held in a PoW camp run by the Italians but, once Italy surrendered to the allies the men became prisoners of the Germans and were sent to Sagan in East Germany (now Zagan, Poland).
Arnold was in Stalag Luft 3 which was run by the Luftwaffe (airforce) and consisted of many compounds which held mostly British and later, American airmen. It did have compounds for NCOs of which Arnold was one. Not being an officer he was expected to work for the Germans.
Though not in immediate danger of being killed PoWs’ life was hard and uncertain. They had inadequate food as infrequent, Red Cross parcels were meant to supplement German rations. Boredom interspersed with harsh discipline and a repetitive, prescribed existence was Arnold’s lot for nearly 3 years. But, in January 1945 the Russians made great advances from the East so thousands of PoWs were moved further West. The men of Stalag Luft 3 were force marched to Moosburg in bitter Winter weather and those who could not keep up were shot or left to die. From Moosburg they were taken by train to Spremberg. They travelled, jammed together in cattle trucks, with no sanitation and little food and water: again many did not survive.
Eventually, he was liberated by American troops in April 1945.
It is hardly surprising that Arnold only aged 25, was eager to begin life. He married and his wife Carrie, was soon expecting twins.
On Christmas Eve his mother died and understandably Arnold was deeply upset. He was coaxed to go for a drink at The Horse and Jockey, virtually next door to where he was living in Watchhouse Row, Roper Lane. He went to bed Christmas Eve night and on Christmas Day morning was found to have died. To add to this distressing story his wife (presumably due to shock) went into labour and gave birth to premature twins who lived for just a few minutes. They were named Carrie and Arnold and, when the funerals took place on 29 December, his mother, Arnold and the twins in his arms, were buried together in Thurgoland Extension Churchyard.
His cause of death was given as a Subarachnoid Haematoma but where and when he had received a blow to the head will now never be known.
So, not all casualties of war are from fighting as these accounts show but all are victims of war.
Further information- see ‘The Last Escape. The untold story of Allied prisoners of war in Germany 1944-45’. John Nichols & Tony Rennell, Viking/Penguin Books.
Grateful thanks to- Mrs Maureen Moffatt and her book Thurgoland War Memorial; Ann Hamblen for supplying Death Certificates.
Ella Jones, March 2020
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PENISTONE POLICE STATION Wednesday 2nd April at 6.30pm onwards.
This is an opportunity to report or discuss anything that you want to say to the Police, either personal or other business. Held at the front desk at Penistone Police Station......further dates to follow.