Memorial for our lost loved-ones

Jo Lonsdale
BBC Newcastle reporter

Tom Cuthbertson is part of the campaign group "Brothers in Arms"

A Sunderland man, who lost his son in Afghanistan, is heading a campaign to get a permanent memorial in the city.

The memorial would be for those who died in conflicts since World War II.

Tom Cuthbertson is part of Brothers in Arms, comprised of a number of families who have lost loved-ones in Afghanistan and Iraq.

They want to raise up to £100,000 to create a Memorial Wall of Pride and Respect next to the existing cenotaph at Mowbray Park.

Tom Cuthbertson's son Nathan, who was just 19, was killed with two other soldiers in June 2008 in the volatile Helmand province.

An inquest in January 2009 heard that he had sustained "horrific" fatal injuries when a local person he was searching, detonated a suicide bomb.

He had been serving as a machine gunner and infantry assault engineer.

Lost loved-ones

Wreaths are laid on to the Cenotaph at Mowbray Park on Remembrance Sunday

After his death, Tom Cuthbertson decided to try and contact other families in the area who had lost loved-ones recently.

These include the families of Anthony Huntrod from Town End Farm who died on a submarine, Tony Evans from Hendon who was killed in Afghanistan, Michael Tench and Simon Miller, who both died in Iraq, and Tony Carr, who died training on Salisbury Plain in 2005.

The families say the cenotaph in Mowbray Park is most associated with the fallen of World War I and II and they think those who have died since 1946 in conflicts like the Falkands, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, also deserve to have their sacrifice recognised in some permanent way.

So far, a series of fundraising events in Sunderland has raised over £20,000.

If you want to find out more, or donate to the campaign, you can email them at: [e-mail]