227094 L/Cpl. Edward Robert "Ted" Scarth British Army 1st Battalion The Buffs East Kent Rgiment from:Hackney, London (d.9th December 1941) This is in memory of my Uncle Ted, who I never met as he died in WW2 only 21 years old. He was my father's older brother. He believed really strongly in fighting Fascism. Mosley's Blackshirts used to march through east London where his family lived and hold rallies. My grandmother Millicent {Ted's mother} used to tell me stories of having to go the the local police station to bail Ted out after getting into fights trying to break up the rallies etc.
Both my grandmother and Ted were members of the Communist Party during the war as were lots of people at the time as they believed Communism was the antidote to Hitler and Facism. Ted had been learning Russian at night school because of this. He was proud to fight in the war, and with The Buffs East Kent Regiment was sent to the Western Desert to fight. I have read letters that he sent home, obviously no content about details of where they were etc but he believed in the war he was fighting and also wrote of how much he missed everyone back home. He and his wife Edie had a daughter Edith born in 1940. He spoke of maybe going to live in South Africa after the war.
He was killed in action on 9th December 1941 in Tobruk, Libya and is buried in the Knightbridge Cemetery at Acroma, Libya.
I think of how awful it must have been for my grandmother and father and his wife to hear that news so close to Christmas. My grandmother placed a memorial in the local Hackney Gazette which read "We are still fighting, Ted". She wanted the inscription on his grave to be written in Russian and the War Graves Commision have translated it for me. It reads "The most holy and heartfelt tears that I have seen in this world are the tears of poor mothers".
I am very proud of Ted and I am told I look like him.
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