大象传媒

Jesse Webb lived at Box Cottage, Village Road, Arle. He attended Gloucester Road School and then the Central School. He joined the army at the age of 18 in 1944. He was in the 10th Battalion of the Glos. Regt. and first went to Colchester. He later went out to India, and from there to Singapore and Malaya (Malaysia), where he spent his 21st birthday. In Malaya there was an airstrip called Kluang, where they searched Japanese prisoners. Jesse was very friendly with a Chinese family there who had two sons who were very well educated. They taught English in a school there.
Jesse was in the Regimental Police and then in the Military Police. The Military Police wore red caps, which, whilst identifying their authority, also served as a beacon to warn skivers or those not wanting to be apprehended.
He came back to England at the end of the war to Plymouth where he was demobbed and given the civvy suit and gratuity. He returned to Cheltenham, to Arle and to his job at the gas works. He proudly retained the telegram his mother received from the Queen when she reached 100 years of age. Not many former residents of Arle can have achieved this honour. Jesse died in January 2001.

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