Leading Cook Sidney (Sid) Berry (1920-2006)
Reminiscences and anecdotes of Sid Berry, born 28 April 1920 in Deddington, as recorded by Rob Forsyth and Colin Robinson during 2004 and 2005.
Session 1 - Memories of Deddington
Sidney William George Berry (Sid) was born 28 April 1920 in a small cottage in Hudson Lane, Deddington and lived in the village all his life except for his five years in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He cultivated his own extensive vegetable and fruit garden, drove his own car and took part in the Remembrance Day march past every year until 2005. He died on 27 December 2006.
Sidney started his working life as an apprentice baker - of which there were at least eight in the village - and the first recording, made on 21 November 2004 in his favourite and somewhat squeaky arm chair, is entirely devoted to recollections of stories about the village when he was a young lad.
Please download this 1 hour 15 minutes audio file, a 17MByte MP3 file
Session 2 - Naval Years
Briefly: he was a baker by trade so it was no suprise that he was made a cook on volunteering for the Navy in September 1940. He served on HMS Mashona - including the Lofoten raid and the hunt for the Bismarc. Shortly after the latter Mashona was sunk by aircraft. He then served on HMS Ashanti during which time it took part in Operation Pedestal (see also Lt Robert Churchill RN, Fleet Air Arm, who died on the same operation) In 1943 he volunteered for the submarine service thinking this might be safer! In May 1944 he joined HMS/M Selene in the Far East where she sank five Japanese sailing vessels and three coasters, and damaged another sailing vessel and coaster. He transferred to HMS S/M Vivid in July to return to the UK and left her to be released from the Navy in March 1946. He was still on the Fleet Reserve list for training in 1956.
Service records: The Royal Naval Submarine Museum at Gosport holds the originals of Sid's service records as Ref No: A2004/0008. They can also be viewed as pdf files by clicking on the links below
- Submarine Training Class Notebook 2 (2.1 Mb)
Oral Recordings of Sid's reminiscences are held in the The Royal Naval Submarine Museum in Gosport and the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth and can also be heard by following the links below. The timing/subject key to the recordings provides a very good synopsis of his experiences should you not have time to listen to them..
- Part 1: 1 hour 2 minutes audio file, a 14MByte MP3 file
- Part 2: 38 minutes audio file, a 9MByte MP3 file
Session 3 - Deddington Pre-World War 2
A further recording on 3 August 2005 concentrated on the shops and businesses in Deddington before the Second World War. There is inevitably some overlap with the 2004 recording.
Please download this 1 hour 19 minutes audio file, a 18MByte MP3 file
These works are licenced under a Creative Commons Licence