大象传媒

Dear Editor

Opposite my Nan's house at Drenewydd, Park Hall near Oswestry, was the home of the Badrock family. Mr Badrock had lost a leg in the first World War and was known as Rocky because he walked with a rocking motion on his artificial leg.

Mr and Mrs Badrock had two sons, the two boys were the eldest and the youngest of their six children, four daughters having been born between the births of the boys. Johnny Badrock, Gnasher was his nickname- because of his broad smile, was killed around his nineteenth birthday and his older brother, a soldier in the regular army, was also killed in the War.

One of my mother's stepbrothers, Dave Smith, married a French Girl and emigrated to France. He was in charge of looking after a large War cemetery and War Graves in France and he had access to and researched the Records for what had happened to his neighbour and childhhood friend Johnny Badrock. Johnny had been bayoneted in his sleep during a night attack on his party by German soldiers. The British sentries posted to watch had been silently killled, their throats slit, so there had been no warning of the attack and many young British soldiers were killed in their sleep.

When the war ended there was much excitement and relief and everywhere there were street parties to celebrate. My aunty Paula was about five years old at the time. She remembers that my Nan and some of the other women in their road at Park Hall had bought Mrs Badrock a bouquet of flowers. Mrs Badrock came into the street supported between two of her daughters. When the women made the presentation of flowers to her, she collapsed and had to be taken home. She never recovered from her loss and was rarely seen in public afterwards.

After this weekends commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of D- Day, I was talking to my Mum about what our soldiers and our allies had to face. She told me that in 1944 when she was sixteen she remembers travelling home a short distance on the train after a Saturday night dance in Oswestry, (before the Normandy landings had taken place), to Tinker's Green on the train and a young American soldier of eighteen whom she had never met before breaking down and crying on her shoulder. He siad he had no quarrel with anyone and had wanted to go to College but had been called up to fight.
She wonders what his fate was and whether he was landed on Omaha beach.

Submitted by June McCarthy, daughter of Olive Pugh, who lived opposite the Badrock family at Park Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire.

June McCarthy, Oswestry

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