William Rowland Elliott

Born in Woodchester, Gloucestershire to Arthur and Ellen Elliott.

His best man at his wedding to Doris Powe in 1935 was Auxilier John Woolf. William was a very self sufficient person. He built his own boat, in the Luxton family workshop, at a very early age, and was soon using it on the River Torridge and at sea.

William's son Arthur; "I recall him talking about the Operational Bases and clearing them out afterwards. He was transferred in the May to India to train Chindits to go into Burma and carry out covert operations. He never spoke much about this time. He left the army about a year after the war with Japanese ended. [William was discharged from Auxiliary Units to join His Majesty's Forces 25th May 1943.] 

He returned to Bideford in 1978. He and Doris had two sons, Arthur (born 1938) and David (born 1941). He continued to work locally as a mason for W H Glover, a local builder, and built his own house in East the Water. He remained close friends with Bill Copp and Jack Woolf.  His wife Doris died in Bideford in 1999. Both Arthur and David lived and worked in Bideford, Arthur as a self employed carpenter, and David as a plumber.

I do have a photo of William and Bill taken in 1951. Bill Copp is on the left, and William is on the right. (The man in the middle was William’s brother-in-law Arther Powe, who had been a prisoner of war with the Japanese and worked on the building of the railway in Thailand.) I am the boy in the background. The photo was taken at Greencliff Beach, and features the boat my father built".