It is with thanks to Tom Arthur, who answered my call for information on Glyn Williams, and for whom I had searched for on the Hawarden Grammar School Admissions Register, that I am able to complete his story There were no less than 5 candidates, so I just needed one clue really to help, but because of Tom, he pointed the way to an article written on Glyn Williams by Historian Dave Healey, who had put it on the website below, If anyone has difficulty downloading this, please get in touch with the website :-
Dave Healey had written an article on Cefn y bedd Mill and was contacted by Ray Blom, a retired USAF Airman who lived in San Antonio, Texas, and had married Gyn’s daughter, Susan.
I will just add what I have found about Glyn to add to his story, much of which is told in Dave Healey’s story, but just to illustrate a few facts that are not mentioned in the story.
According to the Hawarden Grammar School Admissions Register Glyn was born on the 20th September 1923, and was the son of John & Lilian Williams (nee Knight), who had married on the 27th April 1921 at Gresford Parish Church. John Williams was 27, a bachelor and Farmer living at Caia Farm, Gresford, his father was Edward Willaims, also a Farmer. Lilian Knight, 25, a spinster of Ashley Cottage, Gresford and whose father was Alfred Ernest Knight, Grocer. Their witnesses were William Thomas Williams & Gladys Annie Knight.
I find the young couple on the 1921 census, taken on the 19th of June 1921, living at Caia Farm, Gresford. John Williams was head of the household, 27 years, and 8 months old, born in Broswylfa and was an Employer at Home. His wife, Lilian Williams, had been born in Cropthorne, Worcestershire and was doing ‘Home Duties.’ Robert Williams, Brother & there is another descriptive word, which I cannot decipher, age 25 years and 9 months old, born Broswylfa, Farmer at Caia Farm with John. There are two boarders, George Henry Ainsworth, 48 years and 7 months old, married and formerly a Licenced Victualler. The other boarder was Rose Harrison, 38 years and 5 months old, a widow doing ‘Home Duties.’ Both had been born in Wolverhampton.
Sadly, Glyn’s father died in 1933 and the parish records for Gresford record a burial of John Williams, Caia Farm, Gresford on the 22nd of October 1933.
So before Glyn arrived at Hawarden Grammar School he had suffered a great loss at 13 years of age, here is a transcription of the Admissions Register:-
1902/2787 WILLIAMS, Glyn, Date of birth- 20th September 1923, Bod Maelor, Cefn yBedd, Father – Manager Flour Mill, Date of entry, 15th September 1936, Grove Road Cl., Date of leaving – 27th September 1939 – Bank.
I believe that his mother Lilian Williams, re-married in the December quarter of 1935 to Edward M. Davies. (Wrexham Vol. 11b Page 544).
The 1939 National Register, which was taken on the 29th of September 1939, shows Glyn’s mother and stepfather living at Tegfan, Hawarden Road, Caergwrle, Hawarden R.D., Flintshire. This source gives us the dates of birth and Edward M. Davies’s date of birth is shown as the 5th of March 1893 and a Miller, Lilian Davies’s was the 10th of September 1895, and was, as most married women on this register who did not have a job, described as doing “Household Duties.” There are 3 redacted or closed records* as well, probably children, was one of them Glyn, as he had just left school in the September?
*For individual people, records remain closed for a century after their birth (the 100-year rule), unless it can be proven that they passed away before this milestone.
Dave Healey takes up the story about when Glyn joined the Royal Air Force, but he was to find himself meeting and marrying Joyce Fleckney in the December quarter of 1944 (Luton Vol. 3b Page 977).
Glyn, as Navigator, was to be on the fateful flight on the 3rd of December 1944 flying, with Pilot John Dunn, Mosquito FB.VI, Serial Number MM427 from the 464 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron, see http://www.rafcommands.com/database/serials/details.php?uniq=MM427
Edward M Davies, Glyn’s step-father died in the June quarter 1965, but I don’t know if Lilian, his mother was alive to see Glyn’s name on the Hawarden Grammar School Roll of Honour which was dedicated at Hawarden Grammar School on the 3rd February 1951 with a Remembrance Service for the 47* former pupils who died in the 1939 – 1945 World War. As recorded in the Chester Chronicle Saturday 10th February 1951.
*Author’s note, there are 46 names on the Roll of Honour, clerical error by the newspaper.
“BEAUTIFUL MEMORIES, SILENTLY KEPT, OF ONE I LOVED AND WILL NEVER FORGET”
