Tributes to Shropshire Arnhem veteran
Thursday 9th June 2011, 4:32PM BST.
A former prisoner of war from Shropshire has died at the age of 97.
Cyril Ashley, from Claverley, died on Saturday at a care home in Bridgnorth.
The pensioner regularly gave talks at schools around the region about World War Two.
During his time in the military he served with the 1st Airborne Division on Horsa gliders and as an officer in the 7th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers where he was involved in the failed Allied Market Garden operation to seize a bridge in the Dutch town of Arnhem.
Mr Ashley led his platoon through a country lane in the German-occupied Netherlands when they were ambushed.
He was one of the lucky ones to survive but was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Brunswick, Germany.
Mr Ashley, known to his friends as Ash, was called up as a Territorial on the first day of the war. After the war he married Elsie who he described as “the loveliest Wren in the British Legion”.
The couple met at their training base on the Isle of Man and went on to have two sons and five grandchildren.
Hilary Brown, organiser of a veterans’ club at Alexandra High School in Tipton, which he would attend once a month, said: “He was an absolutely lovely man with a fabulous sense of humour, and was very popular with the children.
“He was a wonderful storyteller and a very good poet. He could actually recite them from the top of his head.”
Mr Ashley regularly returned to Arnhem and in 2009 he went with Mrs Brown and other veterans for the 65th anniversary.
His funeral is at 2.30pm on June 16 at All Saints Parish Church, Church Street, Claverley.
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