We found out our late father was a member of the Knights Templar
THERE was a recent article in the Bugle (April 13, pages 18-19) on the graves of the Knights Templar at St Mary’s Church in Enville.
When my mother died in 2012, aged 100, my sister and I were clearing the house, and in an old bible my sister found the membership details of my father, Bernard Pearson, as a Knight Templar.
She contacted the Grand Prior, Godfrey Fowler, but he couldn’t give us any information on when my father became a member. He thought he may have joined through NATO or through his military service.
My father was a major in the South Staffordshire Regiment with 42 years’ service. He was badly wounded in Normandy, and on leaving the army in 1972 he became a chaplain to many Ex-service Associations in Wolverampton, as he was an ordained lay reader in the 1950s.
He was president of the British Legion, President of the Normandy Veterans and past Chairman of Fellowship of the Services in Wolverhampton.
The week following the Knights Templar graves story, you published piece on Anzac Day, and the service held at Cannock Chase. For many years my father took that service. He was born in Tipton, and there may still be some relatives in the Tipton area.
In the Bugle Annual, way back in 1979, you featured my father’s aunt, Laura Prosser. Sadly both of my parents’ sisters and brothers are no longer with us.
Both my sons and one granddaughter are in the army. My daughter is always keen to hear about the family when I was young.
Bert Williams, the Wolves and England goalkeeper, was a dear friend of mine, so I have been so interested in all the pieces you have featured about Wolves in the 1950s, when as a teenager my friend and I never missed a match.
Thank you for all the very interesting articles you publish each week.
I have enclosed a photograph of my late father taking a service for Anzac Day at Cannock, on April 24, 1977. The Countess of Lichfield is in the foreground, laying a wreath. Mrs Eunice Parry, Wolverhampton