Lance Corporal Harry George Warner (1897-1963) lived briefly in Wickhamford around 1939. He lived in Tewkesbury in 1911 with his widowed mother, Alice and grandfather.
Harry enlisted in the Grenadier Guards (No 27742) on 17th February 1916, when his occupation was given as a ‘turner’. He was placed in the reserves and then mobilised on 10th November 1916. He went to France with the 5th Battalion on 9th June 1917 but was transferred to the 7th Entrenching Battalion on the 24th June. He was wounded in the left arm in action in Belgium on 9th October 1917. After hospitalisation in Etaples he rejoined his Battalion on 2nd February 1918. After being promoted to (unpaid) lance corporal on Armistice Day he was finally discharged on 31st March 1920.
On the September 1939 Register drawn up at the outbreak of War Harry was listed as living in Wickhamford at ‘Rose Bank’, Pitchers Hill (now 16 Pitchers Hill) where he was lodging with the Pethard family and employed as a ‘Wayleave officer (electrical mains)’. He was not listed on the October 1939 Electoral Roll in the village, so his stay there may have been very transient. (A Wayleave is a means of providing rights for a company to install and retain their cabling or piping across private land in return for annual payments to the landowner.)