Can you help with an enquiry? – I wonder if anyone can recall, the remains of the “anti tank” feature,that was on the Bath Road before the Golden Cross at Rodborough. It consisted of slots in the road with caps holding over the slots and concrete posts stacked on the Frome Hall Park side. I do hope someone else can remember it, one questions ones own memory as a young boy. With that said I am confident I did not dream it, but it would be nice for someone to confirm what I saw.

SMITH Desmond Thomas died France 27/07/1944 aged 21.

Is anyone connected to this family from Dudbridge Hill. We’d love to find a photo of Desmond.

He was the second child of Gilbert & Alice (Luker). He had an older sister Phyllis. The family lived at Bowl Hill, Kingscourt and moved to Dudbridge Hill in 1930. Alice & Gilbert were still there in 1959, Gilbert was gardener. Desmond attended Stroud Boys’ Tech. The address varies and numbering of the estate doesn’t seem to have changed so they must have moved within the estate from 1 Dudbridge Hill to 52 and later 65.

Gilbert was 21 when he died as a Petty Officer Motor Mechanic in the RN. The incident in which he died is well documented in online WW2 forums.

He was working as part of the UK Coastal Forces on Motor Torpedo Boats designed for high speed with the manoeuvrability for night torpedo launch. On the 26th/27th July 1944 Desmond was aboard Motor Torpedo Boat 430 in poor weather conditions off Cap D’Antifer. Intercepting a German flotilla, MTB 430 was rammed and blew up. The First Lieutenant was killed, 8 men wounded, and 10 missing. Desmond is buried at St Desir War Cemetery, so perhaps he died as a result of injury.

Can you help with the Mills / Pollard / Tanner family in connection to our WW2 memorial? Any photos or information welcomed.

Glyndwr Jesse (known as Jesse) Pollard was born in 1912 at Pontypridd, where his father (Emmanuel) worked for a short time. The family returned to Gloucester, before moving in the 1920s to Cashes Green and in the 1930s to 2 Lansdown Villas, Slad Road, Stroud.

Jesse married Gwendoline Ruth Mills (from Rodborough / Woodchester) in Stroud in 1939, and when the 1939 register was compiled, they lived at 6 Erin Park (now 229 Bath Road), Lightpill, and both worked as piano key makers, presumably at Bentley Pianos in Woodchester.

Jesse served with the 3rd Carabiniers, as part of the Royal Armoured Corps. in southern India. We have no military record, but we can be confident that Jesse died during the Battle of Imphal that raged from March to July 1944 with heavy losses. It resulted in the Japanese being driven back into Burma and was the turning point in the Burma campaign.

Gwendoline remained at 6 Erin Park, and in 1958 she married Reginald Tanner.

He born in 1913 to Bertie and Nellie (Pollard) at Newent, as the third of five children. Bertie was a dairyman and the family lived for many years in Paganhill Lane, Stroud. They had moved by 1935 to 29 Spillmans Road (now number 61). Nellie died in 1937, and Bertie married again in 1938.

In 1939 Leslie and his brother Cecil lived there too. Leslie worked as a “skilled centreless grinder operator”.

Little is known of his service with the RAF Volunteer Reserve. He is recorded as dying from enteritis at 16.00 hrs on 2nd September 1942 at 19 General Hospital. He is buried in Fayid (Egypt) where a military airfield was used by the RAF and the US Army Air Forces during the North Africa campaign against Axis forces.

Are you related to the Hanks family? Private (Alfred) George Hanks is named on Rodborough’s WW2 memorial. He was born in the Horsley area in 1914, the youngest of 7 children and the only surviving boy. He was just a year old when his father George Henry Hanks was killed in the First World War We know little of George’s life, but his mother Alice (nee Rudge) remained in Downend, near Nailsworth for many years and moved to Bowl Hill, Kingscourt sometime between 1929 and 1939, and was there till her death in 1973 aged 95.

“George” was probably a regular soldier with the 1st Gloucestershire Regiment was killed in action in Burma in 1942. We would love to know a little more about his life and maybe find a photo.

The picture here shows Bowl Hill in the early 50s. Mrs Hanks lived just above the cottages on the right and the girl in the centre of the photo is her granddaughter Christine Buckingham.

Albert was born on 25^th April 1909 in Woodchester to William and Elizabeth (Herbert). The family was large; William had 6 children from a first marriage that left him widowed.  He married Elizabeth Herbert in 1891 and they had nine more children.

Albert was the youngest child. His mother died in 1911 and his father in 1915 leaving him an orphan at the age of 6. An older brother, Edwin, was killed in France in 1918 and is remembered on the Woodchester War Memorial and Wayside Cross.

The 1921 census shows Albert aged 12, and at school, in the household of his 26-year-old sister, Margaret, who was also providing a home for three of his older siblings at High St, Woodchester.

Albert married Doris Kemp in 1937, and a daughter Marlene was born in 1939. They lived at Whiteholme Cottages, Kingscourt when the 1939 register was compiled, and Alfred was employed as a printer’s journeyman at Arthur’s Press in Woodchester. He was a former Woodchester team footballer.

Albert served as Gunner 11401652, 173 Bty., 62 H.A.A. Regt., Royal Artillery. He was aged 34 when he died at sea, of wounds on 19^th January 1943. He is buried in Gibraltar. The chain of events leading to his death is unclear.

Doris was then living in a house in Stanfields, since demolished. In 1945 she was married in Stroud to Felix Kalpokas, an American serviceman, and with their new baby, she and Marlene went to join him in the States in 1946.

This was a large local family. Does anyone have any more information or a photo of Albert?

Cecil Burcher

We are still seeking information on some of the men on the WW2 memorial. The photo is of Edie nee Harrison in 1908. She became the stepmother of Cecil Burcher. The family lived in Kitesnest Lane and Edie died in 1985. We know precious little about Cecil who while serving with the 1st Glosters in Burma. He had a brother, Arthur, who seems to have moved to Bristol and married there in 1934. Can anyone fill in his life story?

Martin White has let us know that his book largely about growing up in Rodborough from 1955 to 1963, has been published and is available on Amazon. Here is the link:

Amazon.co.uk : the cotswold boy – martin white.

We have been recently loaned some records and you can read a summary here:

The lettering on Rodborough’s WW2 memorial has been repainted thanks to generous donations to Remembering Rodborough. The wording is much more legible, though the reflective stone is difficult to photograph.

Rodborough Parish Minute Book – 9th April 1840
“At a special vestry meeting held this day according to a notice fixed on the church door and pursuant to the Act of Parliament it was resolved that the application of Jacob Haines to be sent to Australia with his family of six sons and one daughter should be acceded to and notice then sent to the Board of Guardians.”
(Provision for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by an emigrant’s home parish, was included in section 62 of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.  http://www.workhouses.org.uk/emigration/.) 
It seems, however, that Jacob didn’t go, as the family are found on later census records at Houndscroft. He was a woollen weaver born in 1796 and lived to the age of 84. With all those sons there must be lots of Haines descendants around – wondering if they know how close they came to being Aussies!

I have a feeling of delight and amazement when I become aware of something that I must have passed hundreds of times and not noticed. Cresby Brown or ‘Mr Red’ has been carefully recording Ordnance Survey benchmarks before they disappear.

Looking at http://benchmarks.mister.red/#rodborough I realise how unobservant I have been. There are 28 benchmarks photographed in Rodborough.

The term benchmark, or bench mark, originates from the chiseled horizontal marks that surveyors made in stone structures, into which an angle-iron could be placed to form a “bench” for a leveling rod, thus ensuring that a leveling rod could be accurately repositioned in the same place in the future.

All the news in the media about the Armistice centenary has stimulated many family memories.

We have been sent a photo of Albert Edward (Ted) Clarke who lived in a cottage in Kitesnest Lane. He survived the war and emigrated to Australia with his family in 1927.

We know he lived at a group of cottages and out buildings known as the Homestead above the allotments in Kitesnest Lane.

We believe the buildings were demolished in the 80s. The photo below shows cider making at The Homestead in the 70s

Does anyone have any photos of the cottages?

It’s finally time for Rodborough to say thank you to Sergeant John Cuthbert who gave his young life in 1944 when his plane was lost, believed to have been shot down near Brest in France. He was 23 years old and left a young wife and a baby born three weeks later. His name has now been added to the WW2 memorial.

After a beautiful service on Remembrance Sunday flowers and messages were placed under the WW1 memorial in an attempt to recreate an impression of the striking display at the unveiling in 1920.

Initially placed randomly they formed a rather artistic floral heap!

A talented lady has now worked her magic and they are transformed to a beautiful display that will last a little longer.

Remember our note last year about phone boxes being decommissioned?

We have had an enquiry about the ‘Lonely tree’ on the common. Does anyone know its age? Has anything been written about it?

The war memorial was cleaned yesterday and is looking much better. It may continue to lighten a little in the next few days as the cleaning agents continue to work.

Marked on the 1909 land survey map as Allotments Gardens. Does anyone have any idea how far back this land use goes?

We are very excited to have been loaned Rodborough Scouts Archive. We will be busy scanning for quite a while, but hope to share some of the pictures here.

This little snap was in the bottom of the box with the woodlice! Any thoughts?