Tuesday 16th July 2024  

Home Guard, including Quorn Platoon, 1942

This photograph of the Home Guard was taken in the garden of the Bulls Head (now the Quorndon Fox), on High Street in 1942.

Quorn Home Guard was the 13th Platoon (Quorn), D Company of the 10th Leicestershires, but the various platoons from nearby villages frequently worked together. The men in this picture come from several different local platoons, including Quorn. The writing on the largest drum says ‘Rothley Home Guard’.

The only names we have so far are:
2. Cyril Brown from Quorn (identification almost certain). Born 1925, died 2017. When he was in the Home Guard he was very fit and received special commando type training that was to be used if the country was invaded, so that resistance groups could be formed with people trained in guerrilla warfare. He was in the Royal Navy 1943-1946, serving on Atlantic and Arctic convoys. His best man at his wedding as Tony Clark (no 48)
3. Ray Fletcher. Ray was a friend of Cyril Brown. He went on to join the Royal Navy. Later he lived on Unitt Road, with his wife Mary and son David, where he had large garden, which he kept beautifully with flowers and produce.
48. Cyril Antony Clarke (known as Tony Clarke)
49. Reg (Reginald Hallam). See below for anecdotes about Reg, from his friend Cyril Brown (no 2).

Can you supply any more names? Hint – if you click ‘Enlarge’ below the photograph, you will see the faces more clearly.

Tony Clarke, who supplied this photograph, remembers it being taken and kindly loaned it to Quorn Village On-line Museum in February 2020.

Chris Causton added that the the Home Guard was originally known as the LDV, 'Local Defence Volunteers' (or 'Look Duck and Vanish'!)

Anecdotes about Reg Hallam (no 49)
Reg lived in Freehold Street all his life and was involved with Quorn Football Club as an adult. He was a friend of Cyril Brown (no 2) and both worked at Rolls Royce after the war. Reg later joined the army and fought in a lot of ground battles. In one of them towards the end of the war, the Germans were in retreat, but he got captured by them. Apparently, the German commander took one look at Reg, who was quite small and slight, and said "If that is the best they've got they can have him back", and they continued their retreat and left him to find his unit!
After the war, when Reg and Cyril were working at Rolls Royce, they used to cycle home from the factory at Mountsorrel to Quorn at lunchtime to have their dinner. Note: in those days most people had dinner at lunchtime not in the evening. They then used to cycle back. One day they were cycling up the old A6 just going out of Quorn, when a lorry overtook them, they were riding side by side chatting, when Reg suddenly took off after the lorry. Cyril wondered why Reg had decided to 'race' the lorry. When he got to work there was no sign of Reg. He turned up about half an hour later. Apparently a rope from the lorry had wrapped around the handlebars of Reg's bike and it wasn't until the lorry reached Birstall when it stopped at the traffic lights, that Reg managed to free himself!
Reg was born and lived all his life at 10 Freehold Street which stayed in the family for 100 years until it was sold in 2021. His uncle William Hallam, was the first man from Quorn to be killed in WW1.
Thanks to Ken Brown for these memories of his dad's.

Missing information: Can you supply any more names? Please email us at: team2024@quornmuseum.com Submitted on: 2020-02-13 Submitted by: Tony Clarke with additional information from Christ Causton, Dawn Stewart and Ken Brown Artefact ID: 2379 Artefact URL: www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2379 Print: View artefact in printer-friendly page or just on its own (new browser tab).