Daniel Paxton

Letter from nephew Paul Kindley;

"I have just stumbled upon the website which relates to the Northumberland Auxiliary Unit Patrols. My Uncle was very active during WW2. He was one of the first to be recruited in the Bedlington area. Daniel (Danny) Paxton (sometimes known as Short) was an explosives guy, charge firer at the "A" Pit, Doctor Colliery in Bedlington. He never talked about WW2 much, only when I got him a little worse for wear with a whiskey or two then he would sometimes begin to tell me tales.

It all started in the early 1940's, on his way to work the night shift, a car pulled along side him some men got out and bundled him into the car, they drove off. While driving along they asked him if he would be interested in joining the "Secret Army". He said the whole episode was traumatic but he agreed to join and never did his night shift. He was taken to a secret location and interviewed and joined the Auxiliary Units.

Over a period of time he would be away from work for different types of training, his supervisor at work became suspicious about the time Danny was missing and started asking questions. He was warned against this from his immediate boss and never mentioned Danny being missing again.

Danny was very good at his job and started to train his and other Units in the use of explosives. He was sent to Whickham near Newcastle to train some other Units from the County Durham Auxiliary Units.  He showed them what to do and then it was their turn they set too large a charge and blew a tree fifty feet into the air with it crashing into a barn.

He used to go to Ross Links (bombing range) on the Northumberland coast on a regular basis though he didn't say why. I remember quite a few years ago he showed me all of his time pencils, he kept them in a tin box. There were quite a few, all of which had a little coloured dot on them which indicated the time span before it would detonate the charge.

There was an article in the (Newcastle) Sunday Sun newspaper a long time ago (it was in 1968) about the "Secret Army" although my uncle was not mentioned he knew of all the people mentioned in the article. One of the most disturbing things he told me was if the Germans had landed he was given a maximum of two weeks to live. In that period of time he had a list of activities to carry out one of which he had to kill the manager of the Doctor pit who was rumoured to be a Nazi sympathizer.

My uncle was awarded the B.E.M in the 1970's and I often wonder if his wartime activities helped him get the award as well as his contributions to the Northumberland Coal Board."