Ronald Garnham
For the last time, over to Liz…
Ronald’s birth was registered in Stow Registration District in December Quarter 1921. The date tallies nicely with the birth date Matt has because parents had six weeks to register a birth, most of which would have fallen in this quarter. Stow Registration District included Stowmarket and several neighbouring villages. His birth was re-registered in Gipping Registration District in 1935 (the successor of Stow district), under his father’s surname. Matt could order the certificate(s) to confirm details of his parents, as well as the precise date and place of birth.
The 1921 Census will be released in 2022, but it was taken in June, a few months before Ronald’s birth, so only his parents will appear on it. I should stress that the birth certificate is needed for completeness and confidence. Still, we can surmise that his parents may have been William J Garnham and Isabella B Griggs: the birth index gives his mother’s maiden name as Griggs, and a matching Garnham-Griggs marriage took place in Stow Registration District in 1923.
Just after War broke out, we can find the couple at 139 Church Row, Framsden. Locals will be familiar with the style of the cottage. Framsden’s estate cottages are particularly pretty and scattered throughout the village, including along the B1077. The cottages were designed 150 years ago by Lord John Tollemache to provide homes for estate workers. Each pair shared a bread oven and came with an acre of land for growing food and keeping a pig.
William James is described as married, born on 26 November 1890 (later changed to 10 December 1890) and an agricultural worker, more specifically a horseman. Significantly for a war-themed post, he was also noted as an ARP Stretcher Bearer. Many of the Home Guard and ARP were decorated First World War soldiers, and it seems likely that William himself had been on active service with the Royal Navy during the First World War.
Volunteers of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) in Suffolk, as in the rest of the country, had several roles. They would have been spotting enemy aircraft, warning people to take cover, sounding sirens, reporting bombings, casualties and damage, helping extinguish fires, advising on the fit of gas masks and ensuring parishioners adhered to blackouts.
Who knows, perhaps William spotted the plane that bombed Framlingham, seven miles away to the east, on 6 October 1940. The lone aircraft dropped the bomb that killed my own Aunt Carrie in the School House. She usually went to my Great Great Grandfather’s for lunch but had stayed at home that Sunday afternoon to mend her stockings. Family legend says that she was found still with the needle in her hand.
But I digress…
Along with William, the 1939 Register shows Isabella B Garnham (also given is the alternative spelling Isabbella) who was born on 19 June 1902. Her role was the now-familiar ‘Unpaid Domestic Duties’. Along with the couple were four other occupants. Three of these occupants are on lines that are still closed records suggesting that they relate to people born less than one hundred years ago. One could easily be Ronald, who was only 17 when War broke out and by then one of three siblings. These records will gradually be opened as time passes, but with evidence of a relevant death, it is possible to request that a record is opened sooner than the standard 100 years. Another man, Sydney C Gabb, was also living with the family. Further research may show whether he was a relation or a lodger.
So what happened to Ronald during the War? His photograph clearly shows him in uniform. A newly released collection of Find My Past includes a record for him that gives his service number (1142081), regiment: The Royal Regiment of Artillery, and an attestment date: 1941. This information is taken from enlistment books maintained by the British Army. Unfortunately for researchers of the Second World War, the books contained relatively less information after 1929. However, we can see that he was discharged to the reserve on 12 February 1946, several months after VE Day.
Matt knows that Ronald was in the Mediterranean and/or Southern Europe and that he spent time in Greece and Crete. Although Germany unconditionally surrendered on 8 May 1945, German forces on Crete surrendered a few days later on 12 May. Ronald saw a great deal of front-line action; experiences unimaginable for most of us.
To find out more, Matt or another member of his family could consider requesting Ronald’s World War Two Service Record from the MOD. More details here. The details contained would indicate where Ronald was and when, and with which battalion. This information could then be followed up in regimental sources and other published histories.
The Royal Artillery contained 960 gunner regiments during the Second World War – more than a million men altogether. The sheer size of the Royal Artillery means that Ronald’s service records would be the place to start research, although the records do not always contain as much information as applicants hope.
Despite everything he faced, Ronald came home to Suffolk. He married a local lady, Olive Farrow, in the last quarter of 1946. She was a ‘domestic at a farmhouse’ and daughter of a farm labourer when recorded in the 1939 Register. Her brother, like Ronald’s father, was in the ARP. Oddly enough, she had lived at house number 139 that year: the same number as Ronald.
Thank you very much to Matt for sharing the image of his grandfather for this series of VE Day posts remembering relatives. As ever, full citations are available on request.
