Webmaster comment:
Should readers have any knowledge of Sidney Read,
especially his Army Number and unit, please write via
the Norfolk Section Editor. Postscript Nov 04:
Basil Gowen wrote
to say that after considerable personal research,
without success, he enlisted the help of Chris Basey,
Secretary the RBL Acle and District Branch. Adequate
evidence was found and the case presented to the
Parochial Church Council to have Sidney's name added
to the Roll of Honour in Stokesby St Andrew Church.
Chris authenticated Sidney George Reid's war service
by reference to contemporary Electoral Rolls. The
Lists of Voters during time of war included
supplements called the ‘Service Register’ which
listed men of the parish on military service. That
relating to Stokesby Parish on 15 Oct 1947 included
entry no 5: Read, Sidney GH, 1 Council Cottage. That
entry tied up with entries in the Parish Registers as
follows:
Baptisms: 15 Nov 1925, Sidney George Herbert Read,
Mill Road, Stokesby
Burials: 30 Mar 1950, Sidney George Read age 24 years.
The PCC agreed! In Nov 04 the Roll of Honour is in the
possession of the RBL Acle Branch and Sidney's name is
being added to a space at the bottom, at their
expense.
Sadly, Sidney's sister did not live to see this wrong
being righted as she died in 2003. Postscript 12 Feb 05: Chris
Basey wrote to say there will be a
Service of Rededication of the Roll of Honour on Sun
13 Feb 2005 at 1000 hrs at Stokesby St Andrew Church.
In the absence of the Rector (sadly recovering from a
heart attack) the service will be conducted by the
Revd Peter Paine, Chaplain to the Port & Haven and
National Chaplain to the Royal Air Force Air Sea
Rescue Association. Attending will be Basil Gowen, the
Acle and District Royal British Legion Standard
Bearer, Chairman Peter Kingsley, Secretary Chris Basey
and Major John L Raybould, Editor the Norfolk Section,
The Britannia and Castle, The Regimental journal of
the Royal Norfolk, Suffolk and
Cambridgeshire Regiments. Postscript 13 Feb 05: On a
blustery but sunny February morning, followed by sleet
showers, a small congregation witnessed the
Rededication of the Roll of Honour with the
significant addition of the name of Sidney Read at
Stokesby St Andrew Church.
The Silence commenced with the reading:
They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning,
We will remember them
Sidney served in Burma with the
2nd Bn and, fittingly, at the conclusion of the
Silence, the 'Kohima Epitaph' was read:
‘When You Go Home
Tell Them Of Us And Say
For Their Tomorrow,
We Gave Our Today'
The Revd Peter Paine, Chaplain
to the Port & Haven and National Chaplain to the
Royal Air Force Air Sea Rescue Association, in his
address, reminded us that that evening a candlelit
service would be held in Dresden, Germany, to
commemorate the bombing of that city, 60 years ago.
The resultant firestorm, which our UK Prime Minister
Winston Churchill later acknowledged as 'a mistake',
caused the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. I have very
personal connections with the 'innocent civilians' who
died as a result of WW2 in UK.
My late mother lost both her brother Kenneth Lindsay
McKinnon after a road accident with an army convoy and
her first born son Kenneth after a bomb fell in the
street where my parents lived in Harold Park, Essex.
German bombers were often turned back from bombing
London by the AA (Ack-Ack or anti-aircraft guns) at
Hornchurch, not far away. They then dropped their
bombs to return more quickly home. I bear my uncle's middle name. |
B&C Norfolk Editor