My father, Phil Bottomley, who has died aged 92, was a veteran of the Normandy campaign of the second world war. At 7.30am on D-day – 6 June 1944 – the 20-year-old Phil landed with the 8th Battalion, King’s Regiment (Liverpool), on Juno beach, Normandy. Under heavy fire he and his comrades ran up the beach with their trenching shovels held over their faces for protection. Phil served for 10 weeks in Normandy before suffering a serious head injury in the Battle of the Falais Gap.
Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, Phil was the third child and only son of Harold Bottomley, a jeweller, and Bessie (nee Massey). He was a much loved son born only six years after his mother had lost two brothers, George and Phil, on the Western Front on the same day in 1918. Phil went as a boarder to Kingswood, Bath, and represented the school at football, rugby and cricket.
After school, Phil became an apprentice engineer at Leyland Motors, near Preston, and in the summer of 1942 was a regular for the Ormskirk first XI cricket team, batting at number 3 and bowling leg spin. The Ormskirk Advertiser reported glowingly “Bottomley’s classic innings” referring to his 69 against the RAF. He was out LBW to the West Indian fast bowling legend Learie Constantine. This was the high summer of his cricket career and, after receiving his call-up papers, he left that December to do his basic army training in Formby. Given the family’s profound loss during the first world war, it is difficult to imagine his parents’ thoughts as he left.
After his injury in Normandy, he underwent surgery in a field hospital before being evacuated by air to the specialist head injury unit at the Radcliffe infirmary, Oxford. Despite a very poor prognosis, he made a good recovery and, while convalescing at St Hugh’s College, at a neurological unit established by Sir Hugh Cairns, he met the love of his life, a VAD nurse, Rosemary Brian. She was set on a nursing career, incompatible with marriage then, but Phil was persistent, even buying a bungalow to lure her to the north-west.
Advised to take up a quieter occupation, Phil joined his father in the jewellery business and married Rosemary in 1949. Phil and Rosemary had a long and happy life together with Phil growing fabulous camellias, tomatoes and sweet peas.
After Rosemary’s death 10 years ago, Phil lost some of his zest for life. He is survived by his children, Peter, Michael and me, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
