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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Margaret Fairbrother, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My name is Margaret Fairbrother, niece to Alfred Joseph Walton who was killed in Italy and has a stone at Cassino. It all began when my mum told me about Alf. She had a photo of him in uniform. When he was 19, he enlisted into the Sherwood Foresters 5th Battalion Notts and Derby regiment. He was killed on the 13th of October, 1943, which was a Wednesday. As I became older, I was curious as to why Cassina was hardly mentioned in the memorial parades. I began to enquire as to where and how he was killed. The more I delved, the more I found out. The other reason was that on the 13th of October 1983, my husband died.

My uncle began at the Red Cap School after passing his scholarship, and was there until the age of leaving. He went to work for Firth Brown’s until he joined the army. I don’t know where he went first, but he finished up in Italy where, as I heard, he was blown up on a bridge and fell into a river. He was wounded and drowned. That is as much as I knew, until today, the 13th of August 2005, when I was looking at some pictures, and noticed one from Cassino. When I turned it over, my uncle’s name was on the other side. This was in the Winter Gardens in Sheffield, at the V.J. Remembrance Festival.

My uncle was the son of Jessie and William Walton, brother of Grace Cook and Ada Clover (who have passed away).

Pr-BR

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