1091261 Driver Walter Favell Royal Artillery
Walter was the son of Horace Favell from Hemingford Grey, who had served in the Coldstream Guards during WW1. Walter was born in 1915 but grew up in Wembley, North London, where his parents Settled.
His Father Horace was a Postman and young Walter followed the same path, starting off as a telegram boy. Shortly after joining the army Walter married his girlfriend, 20 year old Joanne Frances Caroline Howard.
Tragically, just two years later, 22 year old Joanne died of Leukemia and was granted her wish to be buried in her wedding gown. She did not want the funeral at Alperton to be a sad affair, and asked for those attending not to wear mourning dress.
Notes from his family tell how Walter saw the evacuation at Dunkirk and later, following the invasion of Europe, was part of a replacement battalion for one wiped out at Arnhem.
He witnessed a friend being blown up and and saw the horrors at Belsen.
Despite all of this, he was known as a calm, kind and cheerful person.
After the war, Walter returned to his job at the post office and in 1948 he re-married to Lynda Mary Rona Perks.
When Walter retired from the post office in 1975 he had completed 45 years service. In 1976 his long service was recognised with the award of the Imperial Service Medal. At the presentation ceremony it was said that Walter started as a temporary messenger on Saturdays while still at school and became a full time postman in 1930 at Wembley and then moved to the Harrow sorting Office in 1948. Walter died at the age of 82 in 1997.
I believe his wife Lynda to have been a budding artist and in recent years several works have come onto the market, mostly online, of paintings from the 1970s signed L M R Favell. An example is shown below.
