VETERAN’S 50YR The Legion’s 5 shillings a week saved us... I feel I have to pay them back
A CHESTFUL of medals adorn proud Roy Marren’s blazer as he sells poppies outside his local supermarket.
With every shake of the tin, 95-year-old Roy is helping to repay a debt owed by so many war veterans and their families.
He did his bit for Britain by serving in World War Two.
And, sharp as a tack, he recalls minute details from his Army days.
But it was one simple act of kindness, six years before WW2, which shaped his life.
Roy was just 10 when, in 1933, his father Frank died from double pneumonia – a legacy of mustard gas poisoning while serving in the trenches at Ypres during WW1.
With no income, Roy’s hard-up family faced being torn apart.
But the Royal British Legion came to the rescue with a five shilling a week allowance – a significant sum back then.
The Marrens were one of the first to benefit from the handouts.
CRIPPLING
And it is why, for the past five decades, Roy has raised thousands for the Legion through collections and poppy sales.
He said: “For me, this is a debt that I am still paying back.
“Life could have been very different without that help, so I feel I owe the Legion.”
Roy’s father Frank was just 36 and had been a driver for the 3rd Staffs Battery, Royal Field Artillery.
The family lost his £3-a-week wage from the textiles company where he worked as a dye mixer.
Roy’s mum Mary had just a state widow’s pension of £1 to feed him and his brothers Basil, nine, Frank, six, and Donald, two.
In the grip of a crippling depression, broken men queued for a single job and families lived in abject poverty in slum housing.
Roy, of Leek, Staffs, recalled: “They were tough times, so much poverty and no jobs.
“Mum could have easily had to separate us boys to survive. That five shillings was a lot of money to us.
“The welfare office assessed our needs and went back to the Legion. It would have been dealt with at the highest level because lots of families were in need.
“We were given vouchers to be spent on food at a designated shop.
“Every week, Mum wrote her grocery list for that amount and I’d go and collect it. We were lucky she was an excellent cook and able to make the food last. She was a first class mother.”
The Legion donations went on for 18 months. Mary did everything to get by – even lugging Donald along when she got cleaning work. Aged 12, Roy became the main bread winner as a part-time errand boy delivering parcels. When he turned 14, in 1937, he left school and became an apprentice engineer. As war came for a second time, he was put on a reserved list of professions – jobs considered essential for the war effort at home. He explained: “I was working in a factory which made parachute cords. That job could have saved my life as I missed the first three years of war. “But I wanted to be part of it. When I turned 18, me and