Sydney Neilson
Sydney ‘Mick’ Leslie Neilson (1932-2019) was born in Cleethorpes, one of eight children to John and Margaret Neilson. His father died when Mick was eight. Times were hard and he had to leave school early in order to help support the family, starting at the Scunthorpe Steelworks. Mick taught himself...
Sylvia Davies
Sylvia Davies (1959 – 2018) was born Sylvia Bergamo in Switzerland on 25 August, the youngest of four children. She moved to the UK as a young child and after leaving school, she worked in a shoe factory in Bridgend. After her marriage, she became a cook and then a...
Sylvia Dormer
Sylvia Evelyn Dormer (1928 – 2014) was born in Norwich to Violet and Albert Abbs. Sylvia was an only child until she was 10 years old, when her sister Myra was born. The Second World War disrupted her education and Sylvia left the Stuart School for Girls aged 14. She...
Sylvia May Hutchins
Sylvia was born on 5th April 1924 in Portland, Dorset and grew up there then the family moved to north London where her father ran a haulage business. She met Bert Hutchins when her mother was childminding his daughter Silvie and in the mid 1950’s they moved to Benfleet where...
Sylvia Myson
Sylvia Joy Myson, ‘Sylvie’ (1934 – 2019) was born in Cambridge on the 7th July 1934. She had three brothers, whom she looked after when their father died, when Sylvie was eleven. She left Coleridge School to work as a seamstress. Sylvie married Terry in 1956. They lived in Cambridge...
Terence Dashwood
Terence James Dashwood (1937 – 2019) was born in the East End of London, the only child of Ivy and Jim. He was evacuated from Stratford to Bedfordshire, aged three. He went to Bedford Modern School. Terence did his National Service in the RAF. He started work at Goldington Power...
Thomas ‘Tom’ Frederick Hering
Thomas ‘Tom’ Frederick Hering (1935 – 2021) was born on 7th April 1935 in London to Frank and Kitty. He had two sisters, Anna and Norah. Tom was sent to boarding school from the age of four. Tom’s mother remarried in 1943 and had another son, Martin. In 1949 he...
Thomas Blake
Thomas Henry Blake (1931 – 2019) was born in Elham to Charles and Elizabeth. He was the middle child of five, the others being Bill, Ronald, Gladys and Pamela. His father died when he was still young. The family moved from Folkestone to Hampstead in London before the war started....
Thomas Brown Hunter
Thomas Brown Hunter was born on 9th September 1945 and was the oldest of five children. He remained close to his brother John all his life. He played football for his junior school and for Northumberland county at senior school. He left school and started a plastering apprenticeship but left...
Thomas Gondris
Thomas Gondris (1930-2019) Tom was born in Czechoslovakia, the only child of Eugen and Else. Tom was sent to England on the last of the Kindertransport trains. He was given a home by the Parsons Family, in Hampshire. Tom’s parents didn’t survive the war. He left school at 18 and...
Thomas O’Halloran
Thomas John O’ Halloran (1929 – 2019) was born in Newtown, Cardiff to Mary and Henry O’Halloran, one of ten children. Tom left school aged 13. He eventually found work as a builder’s mate. He spent two years in Yorkshire on National Service before returning to Cardiff to work in...
Thomas Oliver
Thomas Watson Oliver (1910-1991) Tom was born in Sheffield but the family moved to London when he was four. He was an only child. He won a scholarship to Tonbridge School, where he thrived academically and in sport. Tom left school at 15 to work in his father’s business, Henry...
Timothy Maskell
Timothy John Maskell (1961 – 2019) was born in Rotherfield, the younger child of Margaret and Fred. He had an elder sister, Sandra. The family moved to Crowborough when Tim was seven, where he attended the Beacon School. He left school at 16 and trained as an engineer. He became...
Tony Prout
Tony Prout (1953-2018) was born in London and was educated at Eastbourne Grammar School. In 1972, Tony joined the Police Service in Sussex, a career spanning 30 years, during which he rose to the rank of inspector. Tony was also a self-defence and judo instructor. His two sporting passions were...
Ursula Rhodes
Ursula Henriette Barbara Rhodes (1923-2011) was born in Germany but was sent to England, aged 15, when Germany became unsafe for the Jewish community. Sadly her parents, Gertrud and Heinrich Michel and her younger sister, Lilli, did not survive WWII. She was adopted by the Hawthorne Family and gained a...
Ute Bass
Ute Bass (1951 – 2019) had a simple rural childhood in the village of Juhrdenerfeld in northwest Germany. She studied at Hamburg University, and won a Fulbright Scholarship to study literature at the University of Texas, travelling extensively in the USA and Canada. Returning to Hamburg University, she gained an...
Valerio Augusto Lucchesi
Dr Valerio Augusto Lucchesi (1927-2018) was born in war-time Italy to Evelina and Mario. He had one sister, Anna. He was largely self-educated, and learned English from British and American troops. He was accepted by the University of Florence where he took his doctoral degree in English. He moved to...
Veronica Towler
Veronica Towler (1941 – 2018) was born on 12 June, an only child. She studied at the London University for a degree in general estate management and then at Exeter University for a degree in social work. She worked briefly as a social worker and then returned to surveying, becoming...
Victor Martin
Victor Martin (1940 – 2019) was born in Glasgow on 24th September 1940. He was an only child with a largely absent father. He had a tough childhood, growing up in a tenement building with no bathroom and a shared outside toilet. Vic was, however, an intelligent boy and won...
Victor Woolley
Victor James Woolley (1941–2018) grew up in Sheffield, with his mum and dad, Evelyn and James, and his younger siblings Ian, David and Cheryl. He joined the RAF Linguistics School and worked translating intercepted messages from spy planes flying over East Germany and quickly became fluent in Russian. After five...
Wendy Cook
Wendy Elaine Cook (1958-2018) was born in Cardiff, the youngest of four children born to Desmond and Betty Lewis, with siblings, John, Diane and Thurza. She attended Whitchurch School. Wendy was married and had two sons whilst still young. After her second m arriage ended, Wendy moved to Llanharan and...
William (Bill) Lesley Harbord
Bill was born in Lambeth, London, on February 4th 1933 to Bill and Renee Harbord. Jacqueline, his sister was born eleven years later. Bill went to Loughborough Junction school until the family briefly moved to Whitstable to escape the bombing, and then to Galt, Ontario, Canada. In the early 1950s...
William Aldworth
William ‘Bill’ Aldworth (1939-2018) grew up in Willesden with his parents, Ernest and Violet. He had five sisters, Pam, Peg, Maureen, Joan & Barbara. After school, he took up an apprenticeship with a local engineering company. He gained his HNC and became a draftsman until retiring at the age of...
William John Davies
William John Davies (1935 – 2017) was born in Barry on the 7 April, the youngest of two children. He worked first as an apprentice carpenter and then joined the RAF before returning to carpentry once his service was over. Later on, he changed careers and became a Chartered Quantity...
