224693 Pte. Kenneth Edmund Buck British Army 13th Btn. Kings Liverpool Regiment from:Old Swan, Liverpool I was eight years old in 1940. My mum's sister aunty Marjorie had been married to uncle Ken Buck since 1937. He was my best friend and mate. When he was on leave at 7 Finchley Road, Anfield, Liverpool, he taught me how to march properly, and all the different orders when carrying one's rifle, with and without the bayonet fitted. He was a pretty good instructor as I became the marching instructor for the 10th Life Boys and then helped with the Boys Brigade when I was older. It was when he was showing me how to present arms with the bayonet fitted that we had a wee bit of an accident. I had to order uncle Ken to present arms, which he did to perfection except that the bayonet went through the glass chandlier light, through the plaster cast moulding in the ceiling into the bedroom floor boards upstairs. We were both rolling around with laughter for a few minutes. Then he told me I had better go round to my own house and ask my mum if she would come round and give him a hand to tidy up. He started to push his rifle backwards and forwards to free it from the floor boards upstairs it had stuck into. He gave it a bit of a heave and it came free. What also came free was the real lovely scrolled plaster of paris decorative circle in the ceiling and about one third of the ceiling. He just stood there and said `Marjorie is going to be very annoyed with me'. He was covered in plaster of paris dust powder and just looked like a snowman. I don't think he or I had ever laughed so much. I went and got my mum and she helped uncle Ken and me to clean up. The room was spotless and if one didn't look up there was nothing wrong with the room. Uncle Ken and aunty Marjorie had a lodger - mum's youngest sister aunty dora and she was getting married to uncle John Feilding who was a pti in the Air Force Regiment. All mum's brothers and sisters had lived with my mum and dad and me, plus dad's father who was called "pa". He was captain of a Mersey tug boat the Bramley Moore.
This was because mum's dad had lost both his lower legs an inch or two below his knee's in the First World War. He was a ship's engineer and, unfortunately, an alcoholic. His wife died of a broken heart in 1935 and he became a bit of a tyrant. Anyway I tried to get in touch with my uncle Ken after the war. My mum went to the pier head to meet his ship. I think it as about mid 1946 as aunty Marjorie had been having a affair and just left a letter for mum to meet uncle Ken and tell him the bad news. I did get to speak to him in July 1953 by phone as I went to sea, when I joined the Rangitane in London. His mum had married again after the First World War, as his dad Edmund Brown Buck had been killed in France serving with the Cheshire Regiment in 1918. I visited the apartment his mum and stepfather lived in at 99, Essendine Mansions, Maida Vale, London just around the corner from Lords cricket ground. My mum and I went to London just before the war in Europe ended. Possibly it was because my mum had to tell Mrs Dowell about Marjorie. I have traced all uncle Ken's sister Cecelia's children and their children, but I am afraid they were just not interested. I want to put him in my family's genealogy which I have almost completed and for just over the last ten years have been trying to find out about uncle Ken. All his papers are still in the hands of the Defence Department. We have no photos of him as Marjorie destroyed them all.
|