THOUSANDS of pieces of regimental silver are to be sold to help finance a memorial statue to one of the North East’s famous fighting units.

The silverware is being put up for auction by the trustees of the Durham Light Infantry and is predicted to fetch between £40,000 and £60,000.

The items range from a solid silver punch bowl to meat skewers, posy vases, sets of knives and forks, rose bowls, salvers and claret jugs.

Most carry DLI crests and engraved inscriptions and have been divided into 132 lots at the March 27 sale at Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland.

The proceeds will go towards a bronze statue in Durham which will be a replica of the DLI memorial which was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire last year.

DLI trustee Colonel Arthur Charlton, who lives in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, organised the year-long appeal which raised £93,000 for the Staffordshire statue.

He is now in the early stages of the new drive for the Durham statue, with £4,000 in the kitty so far.

He said: “The regimental trustees want to support the campaign as much as they can and this is unused silver put to its best purpose.

“What we would like to do is ensure that everyone who served in the regiment is aware of the auction and gets the opportunity to buy a piece of their history. I am sure it will be going to good homes.”

The silver includes items from the 68th Regiment of Foot, which fought under the Duke of Wellington and the Durham Militia and which was absorbed into the DLI. Some of the tableware would have accompanied the regiment on campaigns and been used in the field.

The lots range from £30 for a set of 11 DLI crested knives to £2,500 for a punch bowl presented in 1892 to officers of the 4th DLI by Col JJ Allison on his retirement after 18 years in command.

A Victorian claret jug was awarded to winners of an officers’ shooting competition while another was presented to officers in 1885.

Julian Thomson, director at Anderson and Garland, said: “There will be ex-DLI soldiers all over the world who may want a keepsake as well as collectors of military memorabilia.”

When the DLI was disbanded in 1968 some of its silver went to the successor Light Infantry and The Rifles regiments.

The original appeal was launched after the two former DLI soldiers visited the National Arboretum, home to more than 200 memorials, and saw that the DLI was not represented.

The statue unveiled last year is of a DLI bugler dressed in the combat uniform of the Korean War, which was the regiment’s last battle honour.

It was a section of DLI buglers which sounded the ceasefire from a front-line hill-top in 1953 at the end of that Korean conflict.

Col Charlton said talks were taking place with Durham County Council over a site for the proposed new statue, whose unveiling could tie in with next year’s centenary of the start of the First World War.

Personal contributions can be addressed to The DLI Memorial Appeal, The Rifles Office, Elvet Waterside, Durham, DH1 3BW, with cheques made out to the Regimental and Chattels Charity of the former DLI.

A STORY OF COURAGE AND BRAVERY DOWN THE YEARS

THE story of The Durham Light Infantry - County Durham's own regiment - begins in 1758 when General John Lambton raised the 68th Regiment of Foot as part of the British Army.

Fifty years later, the 68th was chosen to become a new light infantry regiment - with better- trained and equipped soldiers - and was sent to fight in the Duke of Wellington's Army in Portugal and Spain, where it won its first battle honours. Later, the 68th fought in the Crimean War and New Zealand.

In 1873 the 68th became linked with the 106th Regiment of Foot, formerly the 2nd Bombay European Light Infantry and newly arrived in England, when they shared a depot in Sunderland. In 1881, the 68th and 106th became, respectively, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry.

During the First World War, thousands of volunteers joined the DLI from the mines, shipyards, steelworks and other industries of County Durham. Around 12,000 Durhams died on the battlefields.

During the Second World War, the DLI fought from Dunkirk to Burma and from North Africa to D-Day and the final defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. In May 1940, Richard Annand, as a young DLI officer, became the first soldier of the Second World War to win the VC.

After 1945, the Regiment saw action in Korea, Cyprus and Borneo.

In 1968, the DLI was merged with three other county light infantry regiments to form one large regiment - The Light Infantry.

In turn, this regiment was amalgamated in 2007 with three other regiments, all with a similar ethos, to form The Rifles.