A RESPECTED and much-loved Army veteran was joined on his front lawn for a birthday singalong – complete with standard bearer and sandwiches – to celebrate turning 100.
Originally from Birmingham, Les Butler was called up for the Army in 1941, aged 19, and posted with the Royal Artillery, Northumberland Fusiliers at Sedgefield Army Camp.
It was there, at a dance just before St George’s Day, in 1942, he met future wife Marjorie. The couple married at St Edmund’s Church, in September 1943.
“Lots of the lads met and married local girls and stayed in the area. I must say, we put new blood into the village," he once wrote in his memoirs.
The camp closed in 1944 and Mr Butler joined the 2nd Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment.
He went to Berwick for unarmed combat training and Norfolk for jungle training, before being sent abroad.
“The wife was six months pregnant when I sailed from Scotland to India and finally Burma,” he wrote. “I’ll never forget Burma.”
The war was officially over in May 1945, but it was October 1946 before Lance Corporal Butler arrived back in England.
When his train reached Ferryhill at midnight, he walked six miles home to return to his wife and her family and meet daughter Pamela – by then two-years-old – for the first time.
The couple went on to have another daughter, Elaine, and Mr Butler worked as a sign-writer and painter and decorator for the former Sedgefield Urban District Council.
His handiwork could be seen across the area – at the Manor House, on bin wagons, shop fronts and on North Road, Darlington, where he painted a bakery mural ‘Brittons’ bread builds better Britons’.
Yesterday a small group from Sedgefield Village Veterans and Sedgefield Local History Society marched to his home for a garden party, during which a telegram from the Queen arrived.
Mr Butler said: “I think it is marvellous what they’ve done.”
Village veteran Peter Gaines, who attended with fellow members Richard Robinson and Geoff Pinder, said: “Once in the services you are one of the family. We wanted to show he is still very well thought of, especially with what he went through in the war.”
Norma Neal, history society archivist, had transcribed Mr Butler's hand-written memoirs for a planned VE Day anniversary event which had to be cancelled due to Covid pandemic.
She said: “That made us want to make a fuss of him and mark the occasion all the more. He is an interesting and lovely man.”
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