A special plaque has been unveiled to honour Huddersfield Victoria Cross winner Pte Ernest Sykes who is buried in Lockwood cemetery.
When he enlisted in 1914, Ernest was living in Milnsbridge but was born in Mossley and became a railwayman after the war so a plaque by the Railway Heritage Trust was unveiled at Mossley railway station.
As we revealed in All Our Yesterdays a couple of weeks ago Pte Sykes was serving with the 27th (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers (Tyneside Irish Brigade) and was awarded the army’s highest award for bravery for treating five wounded men under heavy machine gun fire in 1917.
His Victoria Cross is now owned by the regimental museum of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers housed in the Abbot’s Tower, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland. During World War Two Ernest served in the 25th (West Riding) Battalion of the Home Guard and was living in Lockwood where he died on August 3,1949, aged 64.
Ernest, his wife Alice and their two sons Percy and Harold were on the 1911 census as living in Milnsbridge.
Percy, who was four in 1911, lived in Linthwaite and went on to have three sons, Malcolm, Colin and Kevan and three daughters Margaret, Alice and Doris. Doris, who lives in Hyde, Cheshire, is now 85 and lived with Ernest until she was seven. She has very fond memories of him.
Malcolm, 66, of Slaithwaite has three sons David, Paul and Robert.
