AS well as the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland 100 years ago, the D&S Times also contained the news of the sinking of HMS Hampshire off the Orkneys on June 5, 1916. Among the 643 who perished was Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, but his death probably saved the lives of the Richmond 16.

The 16 were the first conscientious objectors who were held in Richmond castle. On Kitchener's orders, they were secretly sent to France where they were due to be executed. Many in the government had misgivings about this draconian course of action, and Kitchener's death enabled Prime Minister HH Asquith to backtrack.

Following the article in the D&S Times a fortnight ago about the Richmond 16, Alan Gilpin has kindly sent in this illustration from his collection. It was smuggled out by one of the 16, John “Bert” Brocklesby, of Doncaster, and sent to the No Conscription Fellowship in London.

To prevent the need for censorship of mail, soldiers were supplied with postcards on which were published approved sentences. They could delete the inappropriate sentences to create a personal message for their families.

However, Brocklesby doctored the sentences to warn the Fellowship that "I am being sent down to the b long". This was a tip off that the 16 were being sent to Boulogne. Once there, they would be in a war zone and so, Kitchener thought, they could be executed without the emotion if the sentences were carried out in somewhere like Richmond.

One of the best known pieces of graffiti on the dungeon walls of Richmond castle is by Brocklesby, showing his fiancée, Annie Wainwright. Annie's brother was killed during the war, and her engagement to Brocklesby came to an end after the war when he travelled to Vienna with the Friends War Victims Relief Committee – he was effectively helping the people who she held responsible for her brother's death.

Nevertheless, Brocklesby's tender sketch on the walls was so touching that a later prisoner renamed it "My Kathleen".

LAST week in this space we featured a picture of Thornton-le-Moor, near Northallerton, on December 17, 1966, and we wondered about the car in the village centre.

We got lots of votes for a Vauxhall Victor, including those from Mark Cooper in Darlington, Ian Wilson in Guisborough and Ian Gravestock in Yarm.

But Derek Noble in Hutton Rudby was a dissenting voice. He said: "I think it is an Austin 1800 which was the big brother to the Austin 1100, both of which were almost identical to their Morris badged sisters."

LAST week, we were also after pubs named after racehorses, and so stumbled upon the Crosby at Thorton-le-Beans, which has a connection to Crosby Don.

Crosby Don was a racehorse bred in 1960 and owned by Don Raper, the chairman of Barkers shops in Northallerton.

"If you go into Barkers' furniture store, there's a big rocking horse with a brass plate on it saying that it is in memory of Crosby Don," says John Calvert of Hutton Rudby.

"My late father, Jack, trained Crosby Don at the Hambleton House stables at the top of Sutton Bank."

Jack Calvert, he says, was a trainer for nearly 40 years, and his biggest success was Move Off, which won the Ebor in 1977. It was owned by the sand and gravel businessman Willy Barker of Tancred Grange, Scorton.

Then John throws in another pub-named-after-a-racehorse: the Poverina in Normanby. Poverina – which is Italian for "poor little thing" – was a racehorse bred in 1916, but we can't discover its local connection.