Armistice Day saw staff gathered in our café area to observe the 2-minute silence at 11am and poppies being sold in the weeks prior.
Many of us have relatives who have served our country and a couple of staff have sons who have joined the RAF in recent years. A couple of us shared stories of grandfathers who served in the Second World War.
Laura Jenkinson’s paternal grandfather, Ken Jenkinson volunteered for the army and having never left England before, found himself posted to Egypt in October 1939, leaving his fiancé behind. They would be apart for five years, only being able to write to each other, and the post took six weeks each way. He was in Ordnance making sure guns and parts got to where they needed to be. At the lowest point of all in early 1942, when there was a high risk of losing and the army needed people to blow all the ammo [so the opposition didn’t get it] and disappear into Cairo and make their way home on their own. Ken volunteered and was prepared to do this, but thankfully the war turned with Churchill’s ‘beginning of the end’ speech. Ken returned home in 1944, got married the same year and was de-mobilised in 1945. Below shows Ken with his wife celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in 1984.
My maternal grandfather, Ernest Hudson (better known as Henry), pictured below, was a Yorkshireman who joined the Territorial Army in 1939. He was called up for service and posted to a coastal defence unit in Scotland. He was commissioned in 1942 and when volunteers were called to join the infantry the Army authorities ‘volunteered’ him. He was shipped to Italy where he was wounded and after a spell in hospital, he was posted to Southern Italy, and then Greece. He was wounded in the back from a mortar bomb fragment which turned out to be British made and had previously been supplied to our ‘allies’. A spell of convalescence was followed by a return to Italy, but, by then German resistance had collapsed and Victory in Europe was being celebrated. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of Major and elected to go to Leeds University. After graduating he joined the RAF (education branch) in 1950 and served as a Wing Commander.
My paternal grandfather, Eric Penton-Voak, pictured below, was a Group Captain in the RAF and served as an engineer in the Far East. In the early part of the war he was based in East Africa responsible for maintaining Sunderland Flying Boats which were used to destroy German submarines. Later on, Eric was in Burma maintaining aircraft fighting the Japanese. Both Henry and Eric were later based at RAF Compton Basset in Wiltshire which is where my parents met in the early 60s, aged 13!
As a firm we have signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant and hold the Bronze Award in recognition of our commitment as an employer to the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise that together we acknowledge and understand that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, should be treated with fairness and respect in the communities, economy, and society they serve with their lives.
View the Randall & Payne signed Armed Forces Covenant
Fiona Hughes is Marketing Manager so for anything marketing related, you can email her on marketing@randall-payne.co.uk or call 01242 776000.
