Budleigh Past and Present

Continued from 20 October 1940: A Budleigh Burial in 1940: Corporal Harry Goulty (1898-1940) The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)   https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-20-october-1940-budleigh-burial.html   Only by chance did I see mention of John on one of the sides of the pedestal which marks his parents’ distinctive grave in Budleigh Salterton’s St Peter’s Burial Ground.   It seemed a shame that lichen and a few tufts of grass should continue to obscure his memory, even though his own grave is far away in North Africa. And I was intrigued by the story of yet another child of a Budleigh resident who was also a high-ranking army officer, and, like so many other former Budleigh residents, born in India. So here is John’s story.       He was the son of Major General Kevin Martin DSO and his wife Hilda Martin, n é e Burkinshaw. Major General Martin was still a serving officer at the time of John’s death, living with Hild...

Continued from 23 November 1939:   Seaman Charles John Sedgemore (1916-39) https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-you-have-done-your-duty-nobly.html   Frederick William Richards' name appears on Budleigh Salterton's War Memorial Frederick William Richards died on 10 April, 1940, while serving on the destroyer HMS  Hunter during the First Battle of Narvik, fought off the coast of Norway. He was one of 112 casualties in the battle, from which there were 46 survivors. Frederick’s death was the first of seven Budleigh-linked losses in 1940, the second year of WW2.  Frederick's original grave in Norway before he was moved to Ballangen Cemetery, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Frederick’s name is recorded on Budleigh’s War Memorial, but he was born on 29 July 1901 in Ottery St Mary, and both his parents, Robert Edwin Richards and Ellen Richards, a Cornishwoman from St Austell, lived in Ottery. They died in 1949 and 1...