Our President, Jim Cox, opened our meeting on May 29 and called on well respected member Bill Shead, to tell us about his role in Hitler’s downfall.

In his own quiet and careful style, Bill described his wartime experiences, showing a number of photographs taken at the time and interspersed with much dry humour.

He joined the Army in 1941 at the age of 19. Trained as a wireless operator, he was posted to North Africa and was injured at El Alamein. Following treatment in Palestine, he was posted to Iraq to help the Arab League protect the oil supply pipes. In 1943 he was posted to a small town north of Baghdad where he said the weather was a bit hot – about 120 degrees in the shade. He told of his joy at meeting up with his younger brother Ken although they were devastated when news of Ken’s girlfriend’s death reached them. He enlightened the mood by explaining what a “vindictive dear John” letter was – vindictive because someone had got it in for him!

Posted then Beirut, Damascus and Tripoli, he received news that his home in Ilford had been hit by a V1 flying bomb, before moving yet again on to Persia to a camp alongside a road originally used by Alexander the Great. He recalled seeing a mule and a donkey – the mule had big ears and the donkey had stripes on his sleeves. Whilst at Basra, awaiting ship to India on route to Burma, tragedy struck. His brother Ken was fatally injured and died in his arms when their lorry was hit by a train.

He was the transferred to central India, where his great uncle had been based during the Indian Mutiny, and was injured playing football. He was eventually repatriated back to Blighty, to be met, not by a grateful nation, but by officious customs officials. He completed his Army career in 1947 in the Orkneys, a far cry from the heat of the tropics.

On behalf of all of us, Gordon Lashford thanked Bill for his excellent, at times moving and hilarious, account. We are indeed honoured to have men like Bill and other members with similar experiences amongst us. We owe them a great deal.

On 5 June we shall have a talk on Fracking and Gas extraction by Piet Velzeboer, followed on June 12 by our own irrepressible Cliff Blackborrow.

We meet every Thursday at 10am at the Ecgwins Club in Evesham. Do join us if you can.

Chris Donough