St Mary's Care Home resident Marjorie's tribute to war hero husband
Marjorie Perry will have a special reason to lay a wreath at the war memorial in Horsham St Faith on Remembrance Sunday.
For the 102-year-old resident of St Mary’s Care Home, in nearby Crostwick, will be paying tribute to her late husband Ted, who returned home with life-changing injuries from one of the Second World War’s fiercest battles.
She will also be reflecting on all his comrades who were killed in the Battle of Monte Cassino, during the Italian campaign.
St Mary’s hospitality manager Ryan Kennedy said: “I want to thank the Royal British Legion for helping us to make Remembrance Sunday a special and meaningful occasion for Marjorie.”
Mrs Perry, the oldest resident at the Kingsley Healthcare home, met Ted when they were teenagers during a stroll in the park; she was just 20 when the couple wed at St Matthew’s Church, Luton, in 1942.
She recalled that after only six weeks of wedded bliss Ted went off to combat with the Royal Hampshire Regiment.
It was during the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944 that she heard the shocking news via a telegram that Ted was “missing presumed dead”.
Her emotions were thrown into further turmoil when she received an update letter from a nurse reporting that he was alive but almost certainly going to die from his wounds.
It was later, after Ted had been brought back to England and was recovering in a Surrey hospital, that she learned he had lost both legs and his left eye in a bomb blast and, lying among the dead, had only been rescued three days later.
Mrs Perry, who worked at a munitions factory during the war, said: “When I visited him in hospital the first time, he was covered in a sheet and he said, ‘don’t look at me, I have got no legs’.
“I told him, ‘never mind, we will get by’.
“Despite the awfulness of war, it was striking how happy the wounded men seemed, singing and laughing together.”
Her husband died in 1996 but Mrs Perry carried on living in their bungalow until she moved to St Mary’s in 2021.
Mrs Perry described her husband as a “marvellous man” and her niece Margaret Cole, from Sheringham, who visits her every week, agreed.
“He was always cheerful and there was never any sign of self-pity about his injuries,” she said.
The couple, who had two sons, Kenny now 77 and Raymond, 73, moved to Norfolk after a holiday in 1960 when they fell in love with Spixworth and had a bungalow built there.
Mrs Perry worked as a fruit picker while her husband did a variety of odd jobs and was also a welfare officer for Blesma, the charity for limbless veterans. They were both stewards at North Walsham Rugby Club.
“Ted loved shuffling around on his bum doing the gardening,” said Mrs Perry.
