My father-in-law Tom Edwards, who has died aged 95, served in the second world war as one of the first RAF bomb disposal officers. After the conflict ended he went on to pursue a long career in agriculture.
Tom was born in Guildford, Surrey, to Hilda (nee Welch) and Frank, a teacher and printer’s proofreader. After leaving school he joined the RAF, training as an armourer and rising to the rank of sergeant.
He only seemed willing to talk about his wartime experiences after his wife, Barbara, died in 2007. Whenever she or their daughter, Angela, had ever been asked about his war service, they had replied along the lines of, “he worked loading bombs on aircraft”.
What Tom had not told them was that he spent several years working as a bomb disposal officer. He was involved in starting up the bomb disposal unit at RAF Redhill, from where he and his comrades went around defusing bombs dropped on RAF sites such as Biggin Hill, as well as buildings in central London, including the law courts.
He kept a detailed notebook, with information on fuses and the tricks used in German and Italian bombs: he worked on 17 bomb disposal operations in the first five months of 1941 alone. He later served in Egypt and Palestine, and on D-day plus one he landed on Gold Beach in Normandy to help get the airstrips up and running while under sniper fire. In 2013 he gave talks about his wartime experiences to schools in Suffolk.
After demob in 1945 he joined a government agricultural training scheme, then worked for 17 years on a dairy estate in Surrey belonging to the paper tycoon, Sir Eric Bowater. While on leave in 1943 he had married his girlfriend from school, Barbara Pickers. Their first daughter, Sandra, died when she was only a few months old.
Shortly afterwards, Bowater called him into his office. “Edwards, I am very sorry,” he said. “To get over it, make another one quick.” They did so: in 1947 Angela was born, and I was married to her for more than 30 years until her early death from cancer.
The family later moved to Suffolk, and for 37 years, until he was 80, Tom worked as farm secretary to the Morley twins, Donald and Erle, noted former rally drivers, and their younger brother Norman, on their large arable estate. Tom was driving and living independently until a year ago, when, due to ill-health, he moved from Stowmarket to a nursing home in Shropshire.
He is survived by a niece, Sussie, who lived with Tom and Barbara for several years in her teens, and a nephew, David.
