Frederick Noel Taylor

Frederick Noel Taylor
24 Dec 1918 - 16 Jan 2001
Issue 98 Jun 2002
Norfolk Section
The Britannia and Castle

Click photograph to enlarge

www.ean.co.uk/Data/Bygones/History/Article/WW2/Private_5776807/index.htm is a site Copyright © East Anglia Network 1997 dedicated by Ron Taylor to his late father Pte Frederick Noel Taylor 5776807 who was in 4 Royal Norfolk at the fall of Singapore.
'I was born just after the war in 1947. Pop always seemed thin and ill compared to my friends' fathers. He never talked about those POW days but nightmares often accompanied his sleep. He was admitted into hospital in 1950 for an operation to remove a large part of his left lung. Tests carried out confirmed it was caused by a tropical disease, which he could only have caught whilst in the Far East. The illness killed off his football career but his enthusiasm for all types of sport lived on.

Back, from left: ?, Pte Fred Taylor, ?, ?, Pte Sidney Wade, ?, ?,
Middle row from left: ?
Front row from left: ?, LCpl Blowers, Sgt Lawrence, ?, Sgt Billy (Bumps) Watts, Ginger Betts, ?

A Coy

Back row, from left: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Pte Horace Ashington (Blackwall Reach, Gorleston), Jack Symon (Jock)

Next row, from left: ?, ?, ?, ?, Pt Donny Morris (Cliff Hill, Gorleston)

Next row, from left: Cpl Holmes, ?, Jimmy O´Connor, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Pte Fred Taylor

Front row, from left: William Underwood, ?, Edwin Tubby, ?, ?, ?, Sgt Lawrence, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Sgt Billy (Bumps) Watts, ?, ?, Ginger Betts

After the war, Fred found work at the Eastern Electricity Board, Great Yarmouth, as a storeman, where he worked for over thirty years till his early retirement in 1976.
His brother Jack and POW companion, died in 1987.
Phil and Fred with their three children and six grandchildren celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1990.
Phil passed away peacefully, her fight for life ending at the James Paget hospital, Gorleston, on 17 Sep 1997.
After a long illness she taught me how to die with dignity and love.
She will always be missed.

Pop did not want to go back to their house after mum died as they had lived there about 46 years. He lived with us for nine months but had to go into the shop during the day with us as he did not like being by himself. He got the flu and I could see the present situation was not ideal and I did not want him to go into a home. I was at my wits end, then one day in the shop he was having a laugh with a customer. It turned out that it was John Green who had worked with him at Eastern Electricity. John was awarded an MBE for his work on pensions carried out for ex-servicemen. Very soon John had his teeth into the problem and got me some leaflets on Halsey House, run by the British Legion at Cromer. Because of Pop's work and war pensions the government would not help him get into the home and he did not have sufficient funds. John wrote letters and achieved what I thought was impossible. Pop got a place in Halsey House where he settled in and enjoyed it. I will remain in John´s debt, a truly great friend now. John´s story is also on the net at John Green MBE.

An unexpected reunion occurred with Jack Symon in July 2000, which was featured in the Yarmouth Mercury, EDP and Daily Mail. The Daily Mail article is featured below with the addition of the Great Yarmouth Mercury picture.
Jack's site is at www.rjt.co.uk/Jack_Symon

Daily Mail : Thu 17 Aug 2000

How a chance glance at a computer reunited old soldiers after 57 years

As young men going off to war in 1939, they vowed to try to stay together come what may.
But four years later, after being captured by the Japanese, Jack Symon and Freddie Taylor were parted in a prison camp - where their last sight of each other was at an impromptu football match.

After the war, Jack Symon tried in vain to trace the friend who had suffered alongside him. But 57 years of searching were in vain and he thought Freddie must be dead. Then - while looking for a computer for his wife Clare - the 80 year old retired publican walked into an electrical shop a few doors along from his home in Great Yarmouth and saw a photograph on a computer screen .... of Freddie Taylor.
Stunned, he asked for the manager, who told him his name was Ron Taylor. and added `Freddie´s my father - and he´s alive.´
Then Ron expanded the picture - to show a young Mr Symon standing behind Mr Taylor in the wartime photograph.
`I just couldn´t believe it,´ said Mr Symon. I told him, `Ron I´ve been looking for your father for 57 years.´
`He told me his dad was now living in Cromer in a residential home run by the Royal British Legion.´
`I asked why I had not come across Freddie in all these years and Ron told me his dad had not been to any of the reunions and did not like to talk about his prisoner of war life.´

Jack later paid a surprise visit to Freddie. `He was in his room and I decided to introduce myself in a humorous way, so I said `Stand by your bed´, the way they used to in the Army.´
`He didn´t recognise me, but when I told him who I was, he remembered our pact.´ The two were among five young recruits who shared a railway carriage in October 1939 as they left Great Yarmouth for Colchester to enlist in the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
Jack Symon recalled: `We put our hands on top of each others and I said, `This is a new life for us, guys. We don´t know what´s going to happen, but let´s keep with one another.´
One of the five later left the army, one was killed in action and three - including Mr Symon and Mr Taylor - were taken prisoner at Singapore in February, 1942 and put to work on the infamous Burma railway.
Jack,a Scot, said: `I last saw Freddie in 1943 in Chungkai PoW camp. We used to get one day a month off and we could play football. He played for England and I played for Scotland.´
The other soldiers who made the 1939 pact are now dead - so Jack is delighted at finding Freddie after so long. He puts their reunion down to fate. In 1945, he survived the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki because, at the time, he was working down a coalmine.
`I believe I came back from the war by being in the right place at the right time.´ he said, `It looks like I was in the right place at the right time to see this photograph in Ron´s shop.´

Picture by Yarmouth Mercury

And see the Obituary for Frederick in B&C 98 Jun 02 and www.rjt.co.uk/Jack_Symon

Jack Symon wrote a book on his exploits called Hell in Five and it can be read at www.rjt.co.uk/Jack_Symon

Site edited and maintained by Major JL Raybould TD
Editor, Norfolk Section, The Britannia and Castle
B&C Norfolk Editor