My friend John Sleep, who has died aged 100, served in the Parachute Regiment during the second world war, operating in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Italy before returning to Britain in 1943. In June 1944 he took part in the Normandy landings and fought his way through France and Belgium into the Netherlands, where he was with the troops who liberated Valkenswaard, Helmond and Overloon.
In October 1944 his lightly armed Bren gun troop were leading an assault near a canal in the Netherlands as they approached the German border, when they came up against a German tank position. John was badly injured by a tank shell in the encounter and spent a year recovering from life-threatening injuries. The scars marked him physically and psychologically for the rest of his life.
After recovering from his injuries, John returned to his birthplace of Wraysbury in Berkshire, where he had been born to Lily (nee Goodall) and her husband, Walter, a builder. In 1946 John married Margaret Robison, a fellow Wraysbury resident, and he went on to build up a business producing handmade wooden gym equipment, later setting up a landscape business which his son, Mark, continues to run.
He and Margaret also had a daughter, Margaret, who in their later years helped John and his wife to remain in their own home.
Over the years John built up close relationships with some of the people he had helped to liberate in the Netherlands, and he organised annual trips for servicemen and their families to the Dutch town of Venray, where they were always warmly received.
He also returned to Normandy and the Netherlands with the assistance of the Taxi charity to remember comrades who had fallen there. He never bore malice towards the Germans whom he had fought against and recently attended German remembrance services for their fallen soldiers.
In retirement John harnessed his great skill as a woodworker to build rocking horses and to make wooden crosses that he took to the allied and German services as a mark of respect. He also participated in a Berkshire campaign, which I organised, to encourage older people to remain active, and was seen on posters in GP surgeries, libraries and other community buildings.
For a number of years John cared for his wife as her health failed. She died in 2014. He is survived by their two children, grandchildren Alex, Kirsten, Sam and Natasha, and great grandchildren Poppy and Toby.
