WHEN an elderly lady gave Frank Lomas a military cross with the name 'Duxbury' inscribed on the back, he had no idea that it would be many years before he learned about the unfortunate death of its owner.

Mr Lomas, 83, of Ravenstown, near Flookburgh, was handed the medal by Hilda Dickinson during the Second World War. He used to tend the garden behind the fishmongers which Mrs Dickinson owned with her husband Jim.

When she went to live in a nursing home, Mr Lomas would wear it on a chain around his neck during visits, so that she knew he had not lost it.

"She trusted me, and I thought it would confirm her trust in me," he said.

The man known only as Duxbury remained a total mystery, as Hilda only ever told Mr Lomas that the medal had been given to her by a lady in Ravenstown. Twenty years later, however, the parents of Mr Lomas' daughter-in-law stumbled upon a booklet at Victoria Hall in Grange-over-Sands, which gave the names of local people killed during World War 1.

Although Mr Duxbury was not marked as one of the 'Grange fallen' (as he was not born in the area), it was mentioned that he was buried at Grange Fell cemetery, about a mile away. Thus a small part of the puzzle surrounding the soldier was solved.

This was only the tip of the iceberg however. There were to be further discoveries when, last November, Mr Lomas put Mr Duxbury's cross on display at an event (also at the Victoria Hall) held to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War.

David Clapp, a member of the South Lakes U3A - a learning and leisure group for people in their later years - had, in fact, put together a biography of Mr Duxbury for the occasion.

He duly passed the information on to Mr Lomas, and below is a little more of what we now know about the man behind the medal, according to research done by the Grange U3A Family and Social History Group Project:

L John Lord Duxbury was born in Nelson, Lancashire in 1890. By 1911 he and his family had moved to Long Preston in Yorkshire, where Duxbury worked on the farm with his father; his two sisters were Draper's assistants.

On May 3 1911 he arrived in Montreal, Canada, on board the SS 'Dominion' from Liverpool, and ran a business as a baker in Breckin, Ontario. He later decided to sell-up and join the Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.).

A 1916 report on an inquest, printed in The Westmorland Gazette, reveals that Mr Duxbury drowned swimming at Blawith Point, off the coast at Grange, on Thursday August 24 1916. He had been visiting his parents who had moved to the area. His clothes were picked up on the shore that evening, but his body was not discovered until Tuesday; near Arnside, 3.5 miles away. His father subsequently revealed that he himself had nearly drowned at the same spot while on holiday in Grange 25 years earlier.

Thus, despite Mr Duxbury's service overseas during a war in which millions were killed, the life of this young man was abruptly cut short far closer to home.

For what reason he was awarded the military cross, and how it came into the hands of Mrs Dickinson, however, remains a mystery.