We are having a Worship leader led service this Sunday 16th of August at 10am at St Enoder focusing on VJ day .
Anybody who has relatives who fought in the Far East during the 2nd world war please make contact .
Due to Covid-19 guidance there will be no singing but we will have music & bells . Social distancing measures will be in place , hand sanitizer , masks/face coverings must be worn during the service and contact details will be taken .
For those who feel they are more comfortable at present worshiping at home the Zoom service will continue .
A really moving service on Sunday given by our Worship Leaders focusing on VJ Day. The below was read regarding a local man who sadly lost his life during the war.
Remembering Alwyn Rodney Gilbert Wright
On the 15 June 1943, Rodney Wright from Indian Queens died of cholera while a prisoner of war in Thailand. He had been in one of the work camps for the construction of the infamous Burma-Siam Railway, which was also known as the Death Railway.
Rodney was born in Bodmin on Christmas Eve 1912 and his parents were John Wright and his wife Julie (nee Gilbert). Rodney’s father died in the early 1920s and his mother remarried, but died in the mid 1920s. His step-father, Arthur Veale, later married his mother’s sister Elsie and they were both very supportive of the young Rodney.
He worked as a brickmaker at Wheal Remfry brickworks and he was also a talented musician, who played a number of musical instruments. He played in Indian Queens Band and was one of three bandsmen who did not return home from the Second World War.
Rodney married Clarinda Kent in 1935 and they had two daughters, Heather and Jenny. He never met Jenny, who was born while he was overseas on military service
Rodney volunteered at the start of the war and served with the Royal Army Service Corps. His initial service was in France and was among the servicemen who were rescued from Dunkirk in 1940.
He was in Signapore in 1942, when it fell to Japanese forces and he ended up in the camp at Songkurai, close to where a bridge for the railway was constructed over the River Kwai. It is known that Rodney worked in the kitchens and, after the war, fellow prisoners told his family that he had smuggled out food to other detainees.
Rodney was cremated and in 1945 his remains were re-interred at the Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
This and other information can be found on the Remembering the war dead of St Enoder Parish Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Remembering-the-war-dead-of-St-Enoder-Parish-291358511375461/
Thank you to Dick Cole for providing us with this information.