Sharston House resident honours brother on Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day had a special poignancy at Sharston House Nursing Home, in Knutsford.
Every year, the commemoration stirs the same mixed feelings of pride and sadness for 92-year-old resident John Allcock.
His brother Alec was in the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War and he was shot and killed during the intense fighting of the Battle of Monte Cassino during the Italian campaign. A life cruelly ended at the tender age of 23.
Alec and his wife Edith had wed just before he left for the war and she was pregnant at the time. Tragically, he never had the chance to meet his son.
During Sunday morning at the Kingsley Healthcare home, in Manor Park South, staff and fellow residents joined Mr. Allcock in front of a specially set up Remembrance table to remember Alec and every other soldier lost to war.
In the afternoon, Mr. Allcock, who also lost three of his cousins in the Royal Navy at around the same time, took a short walk to the town’s memorial with the home’s hospitality host Michaela Ward to lay a cross in his brother’s name.
Alec was buried in the war cemetery in Monte Cassino and Mr. Allcock visited his brother’s graveside with his late wife Jackie during a trip to Italy in the 1970s.
He recalled the joy of being able to track down the grave with the help of the Royal War Graves Commission.
Mr. Alcock served in the Army himself with the Royal Engineers from 1948 to 1950 and is equally proud of his father Isaac’s First World War service in the Machine Gun Corps.
His father was awarded an MBE for his work in the Civil Service during the Second World War and he displays his medal in his room at Sharston House.
CAPTION: John Allcock shows a photograph of his brother
The Remembrance table at Sharston House.
