A chance meeting with Kingsbridge History Society secretary Ann Lidstone while out shopping more than ten years ago led John Deem to join the Society.
“John’s wife had died a year before,” Ann says, “and I persuaded him to visit our meeting. He quickly became interested and was himself very interesting, so before long he was elected to the committee.” And at their meeting in January this year, committee members passed with acclaim their gratitude for his sterling service over the years as a valued and loyal colleague. Increasingly frail health and mobility difficulties have, to everyone’s regret, forced him to retire.
A native of Cornwall, John moved with his parents to Salcombe when he was two years old and then to other villages in the South Hams. “I was 15 when I joined the wartime Home Guard,” he recalls, “and at 18 I enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry.” His unit was posted to Egypt, where he transferred to the Hampshire Regiment. He served in Syria, then fought up through Italy with the 8th Army. “We went to Greece and then back to Italy, and it was there I got hit by three bullets.” His wounds were treated and, fit for service again, he rejoined his unit as it advanced into Austria.
“When we were in Vienna a mate of mine and I went for a walk and he got talking to a couple of Austrian young women. One of them was called Herta, and that was how I met my future wife. We were married for 48 years, but we didn’t have any children.”
The war over, John was demobbed in 1947 and went to work with his father on a poultry farm. “Then I started a DIY shop. DIY was a new venture in those days, and people often asked me what it was.” The business thrived and expanded into two adjoining shops in Ebrington Street over the next 25 years or so. “I was also a retained local fire-fighter for 28 years. When I began there were fewer than 50 fires a year, but by the time I left it was much busier with around 200 fires a year. One of the biggest blazes we attended was that of the old workhouse.”
John started with the CB radio as a hobby and developed as technology advanced until today he is into computers. He also collects books on Kingsbridge. He takes a keen interest in local affairs and often attends local council meetings, so knows the councillors and office staff. Living, as he does, close to Quay House he regularly collects the key to the building so that the Society has access for its meetings.
He vividly recalls the interior of the Ledstone cottage where he lived when young, and it was this conversation with Ann Lidstone that prompted her to invite him along to a meeting of the Society.
COMMITTEE’S GRATITUDE AS LOYAL JOHN RETIRES
John Deem
World War II veteran John Deem, has reluctantly retired from the Society's committee for reasons of health. A minute was unanimously agreed expressing grateful thanks for his ever-willing, cheerful service
Photo credit: J. Fairweather-Tall
