Budleigh Past and Present

  Continued from 9 January 1944 ‘In proud and happy memory of a very greatly loved son’: SERGEANT ROBERT HUGH DAVIS WATSON (1924-44)   Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 131 Operational Training Unit (OTU)   https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-9-january-1944-in-proud-and.html     Top: East Budleigh village War Memorial, with (bottom) the Memorial panel in the village's All Saints' Church  Daniel’s name appears not on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial, but on the above two memorials in East Budleigh where he and his family lived for a time before moving to Budleigh Salterton. The Devon Heritage website lists him as born in Taunton, Somerset, in 1910, to parents Daniel and Jane Dicks. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) noted that he was the husband of Lily Kathleen Dicks, of Budleigh Salterton, and indeed his widow’s grave is in St Peter’s Burial Ground, on Moor Lane, in Budleigh.     Photo ...

Continued from 29 April 1944 -  ‘He died that others might have a future’:  PRIVATE REGINALD LEONARD CRITCHARD (1921-44)     1 st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/03/ww2-75-29-april-1944-casualty-of-kohima.html   Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill. So much more of A.F.P. Evans is known now, thanks to the willingness of his family to share his story           For many years Budleigh Salterton was famous as the favourite retirement place of military types, particularly of ex-Indian Army officers. The writer and former Budleigh resident R.F. Delderfield described them vividly in his autobiography: so recognisable in the town between 1860 and 1945, with their ‘hard blue eyes, fierce moustaches, and mahogany faces’. Adrian Fortescue Penrhys Evans, who was killed in Italy while serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, was perh...