Alan Edwards Hollingdale

He worked as an accountant at Royal Navy Propellant Factory at Caerwent.

Alan received a telephone call at work and asked if he would attend a meeting in the Tredegar Arms Hotel in Newport. He was initially approached by a well known Newport solicitor by the name of Jones. He was asked if he would be willing to undertake a secret and dangerous job connected with the war. If agreeable he was to report to John Todd the following day.

Hollingdale was drafted into the regular army but was released after just two weeks service. The reason for this is unknown - but we can assume that it was because he had already been recruited as the Sergeant of Jonah Patrol.

He continued with his scouting associations after the war. He went onto become County Commissioner and Deputy Lord Lieutenant. Following his death in 1999, rolls of detonator fuse were found in his garden shed. His son David had to call the bomb squad in to dispose of it!

The BEM was awarded to Alan Hollingdale in December 1944. This was for his duties in the ‘Home Guard.’

Interviewed in 1991, he recalled, 

"I was told to choose seven trusted men to form one group. We were armed to the teeth. They told us we had a life expectancy of 14 days, and said we must not be taken alive. Then it dawned on us that terrible reprisals would happen after we went into action. It was a terrible worry, but you had to live with it.”