Stan was born at Thorpe Le Soken and as a child was a choir boy at the local church, he always had a good strong voice he loved music of most kinds but especially military and brass bands. He worked on the land after leaving school in 1939 and learned to plough and work with a pair of heavy horses, when tractors came on the scene he turned down the offer to drive in fact Stan never did learn to drive! The war started in 1939, and life changed for everyone, food was on ration and the lights went out. In 1941 Stan joined the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) soon to become the Home Guard.

In 1943 at the age of seventeen he went to Colchester and signed on having given a false date of birth! He trained at Warley Barracks and became a member of the 2nd Battalion The Essex Regiment who were training hard for the Normandy invasion. Stan landed on Gold beach on 6th June 1944 then onto Bayeux. On the 12th August he was wounded and taken prisoner he spent time in hospital in Paris before being sent to Stalag V11a POW Camp in 1945 Stan was on ‘the long march’ when the German’s marched thousands of prisoners hundreds of miles around Germany, until they were eventually liberated by the allied forces.

Back at home Stan was gamekeeper and a keen follower of the hunt in both Essex and Suffolk he married his childhood sweetheart Jean and they lived in the same cottage for over 50 years, Jean died a few years before Stan and he missed her terribly.

I first met Stan on one of our pilgrimages to Normandy we became great friends. He liked nothing better than to meet serving soldiers and he was highly honoured to be asked to present Minden Roses to C (Essex) Company of the 1st Battalion at Pirbright. Wherever he went he had a joke to tell and a cheery word and given half the chance would even burst into song. A true gentleman of Essex.