Harry Leigh-Dugmore 1920 – 2020 (BVGS 1930 -1937)

This Eulogy was delivered at the two wakes held for Harry on 8th April 2022 at the Plough and Harrow, Slade Road, Sutton Coldfield and the second at The Wheel, Naphill, Bucks on 9th April 2022.

 Harry passed away on 8th March 2020 just one month short of his 100th Birthday and just as the Covid restrictions were kicking in. So, his funeral was a very small affair on 1st April 2020 with just four family members and two neighbours to see him off. We chose 1st April as we knew it would make him laugh. So, we had to wait until this Spring to give Harry a proper send off. On 8th April we spread his ashes together with the ashes of his wife Majorie who has passed away in 2014. We rounded that off with a few words and a reading of “The lion that ate our Albert”, which was a nonsense poem that Harry loved, before repairing to the pub.

 Because Harry also had friends in Buckinghamshire, where he spent his last few years, Harry's two children, Felicity & Charles, then organised a second wake in Naphill on what would have been his 102nd birthday. Each event was attended by over 40 people.To explain a couple of the names, Roz & Emily are two of Harry's grandchildren.

“I don't know whether I will get through this so I have a Plan B which is Roz & Emily are ready to step in. They are armed with a copy of this so if you see panic flashing across their faces then you know I have gone off piste and I am just working from memory.

 But 83 years ago, my Dad had no plan B. There wasn't one when he set off to France as Private 201972 H Leigh.He had joined the Territorials early in 1939, so when the balloon was obviously going to go up he was called up and ordered to report to Birchfield Harriers racetrack. They weren't very organized so gave them all 6 pence to go and buy lunch. Many only went as far as the Crown & Cushion in Perry Barr but Harry walked a couple of roads further on to Thornbury Road where his fiancé's family lived arriving as my Grandad-to-be's lunch of steak and kidney pudding was coming out of the oven. This was donated to the new recruit and my Grandad had to make do with a chop. He didn't mind as he had served in the First War being injured on the Somme.

So, France happened and the retreat to Dunkirk. Harry wrote a lovely article for the Old Veseyans Magazine and that was reproduced recently by the British Legion with some photos. If you Google “Harry Leigh” and “British Legion” it will take you there. You can tell it is his own words and he describes in that typically understated way of his how the newly promoted Lance Corporal Harry Leigh led his men back to Dunkirk. It talks about how he ended up on his own with a few men, more than he should have commanded and how they came to accept his trust, his part in shooting down a Messerschmitt and the eventual shock of finding himself in Wales with the pubs open on a SUNDAY and the landlords refusing to take payment. He tells it better than I could.

 There was one positive outcome. My Mum had got engaged to Harry after they met at Fort Dunlop before the war but she declined to marry him until the war was over. Waiting for him to come back from Dunkirk changed her mind and she said she would rather be married and widowed than lose her fiancé. So, they married in Aston Parish Church on 24 August 1940 under special licence. He was now a Sergeant. There then followed a few years of him doing all sorts of things. In the aftermath of Dunkirk, an invasion was a real threat so the army mounted lookouts on key hills. There were not enough radios so two people manned each hill with a motorbike each so one could ride back to raise the alarm. His plea that he couldn't ride one was met by “Well you bloody well better learn”. After this he spent weeks riding round the West Country on a motorbike identifying any flat piece of land that could be used as a landing field and persuading the farmer to render it safe by parking any machinery, materials or anything on it. His lifelong loathing of motorbikes stemmed from this.

 His medals tell the story of his service. 

 1939-45 Star. He was there. Thanks Dad.

 Italy star. He wasn't supposed to be there. He was on a transport ship bound for the Far East equipped with tropical kit. During the voyage they were re-deployed, landed in Italy and then marched up into the mountains in the middle of winter still in tropical kit. It took a while for them to get decent warm gear. He was glad he had taken his Dunlop wellies with him! He moved up through Italy and was about to go into the front line in Austria on the Tuesday when Germany surrendered on the Monday. This would have been his first action since Dunkirk. A few months later he found himself in Naples as Captain Leigh-Dugmore on embarkation leave for the Far East when the Japanese surrendered. An occasion that he celebrated by playing double bass in an American dance band. He told me that he can't play the double bass but no-one seemed to care.

 We used to pull his leg that both Germany & Japan surrendered just because they knew he was coming. So why didn't Churchill threaten them at the start with sending 201972 Harry Leigh? It could all have been over by Christmas.

 The next one is the Foreign Service Medal. For France, Belgium & Italy.

 The Defence medal for serving in the British Isles. Unusually, for a Dunkirk veteran, Harry did not take part in the D Day landings as his role included umpiring army 'games' around Dover, successfully fooling the enemy that a tiny number of troops were actually the entire army waiting to invade France. He always joked that was where he got his 'war wound' when nodding off holding a lighted cigarette!

 The territorial medal. Major H Leigh serving in the Home Guard until 1956.

 And thePolice Special Constabulary Medal for long service awarded in 1966.

 But there is one medal missing.

One was never issued for him being married to Marjorie. 74 years the two of them notched up together and those of you lucky enough to have known Marjorie will have felt he deserved a medal. She was generally well-intentioned but often misguided. A recent comment summed them up exactly: 'He and your mother made a formidable pair – Yin to Yang I always thought.' But the two of them loved each other as much on the day they were parted as on the day they were married. His devotion was demonstrated by the way he selflessly looked after her in the final years of her life even though it left him exhausted and probably shortened his own life but in truth, but he did not want any time without her, they were so devoted to each other.

 De-mobbed in 1946 he returned to Dunlop where he worked until his retirement in 1982. He went on to achieve a lot in his life so the man was not defined by the 6 years he spent fighting Hitler. It is easy to focus on that. But his army career, from Private to Major, was a reflection of how he went through life.

 He was unassuming in all that he did but with quiet confidence he would demonstrate his competence and receive promotion whether that was at work to end up as Personnel Manager or in his private life where he would always end up in the thick of things and often in charge. For example:

·        Captain and President of Walmley Golf Club where he was made Life Vice President

·        Governor of John Willmott Grammar School

·        Vice President of Heraldry at Birmingham/Midland Family History Society where he was made a Life Vice President.

·        Chairman of Birmingham branch of both the Royal Statistical Society and the Institute of Physics

(he was a Fellow of these and other Institutes!)

 He showed a quiet determination to better himself aided, and greatly encouraged by Marjorie - he did a lot. After the war he took a Maths degree by distance learning and, professionally, showed great ability. He wrote a pioneering book on the Electron Microscopy of Rubber when electron microscopes were a novelty, travelling to America to present a paper and study the emerging use of electron microscopes. Very useful tools for looking at viruses!

He has several patents in his name and the Leigh-Dugmore Calculation is still used as a way of determining the dispersion rates of microscopic carbon black in the rubber industry. A subject way above my pay grade.

 But there was a shared determination between Marjorie and Harry that they would improve themselves. Grandad Jackson's business went bankrupt in 1930's so they suffered very straightened times as he struggled to keep the roof over their house and Harry's family lived in a Council House for a while after his parents' marriage broke up. They definitely bettered themselves but they were quick to help others where they could from lifelong donations to the Army Benevolent Fund, teaching the boy next door A Level Maths which started his career path, to offering to help the staff in the care home when Harry could barely walk!   They also took great pride in the successes of their son and daughter and then seeing their grandchildren prospering. But I am sure that one of his greatest pleasures is seeing the antics of his great grandchildren of which he had a collection of seven and to see how his legacy of humour is rooted through the generations.

 It will come as no surprise to those who knew him that his final days were delightfully ordered. Something happened on the Monday which meant that we knew that the end was near. The Care Home staff were beyond fantastic in the care and support they gave to Harry and to the family but even then, his family's humour showed through. His family were able to spend many hours at his bedside.

As he slipped away, he would have an occasional flurry of minor distress and one of the care staff said that was while he was re-living some part of his life and that bit caused him distress. Dunkirk was one we guessed at but I thought it harsh when his grandchildren said one was caused by my teenage years and another by the experience of teaching me to drive. Although Felicity had been known to cause a few problems too!

But a delightful comment by his Grandchildren was deciding that he was lying there quietly having a last few days of peace and quiet because he would soon be joining Marjorie and she will be bringing him up to date.

His legacy and humour lives on.