The following Obituaries for surnames beginning with "K" have appeared in the Green Howards "Gazette", or have been notified to the Green Howards.

Major H E Kidd TD

Kohn Kidd writes:

My father Harold Kidd. died in May in his 89th year. He was very proud of the time he wore the Green Howards cap-badge during the Second World war although he spent most of it in various POW camps in Austria and Germany. He was Captain with the 4th Battalion at Dunkirk in May 1940, when going out on patrol he was wounded by shrapnel and subsequently captured. He was marched for many hours under armed escort, with the shrapnel still in his back. He spent the rest of the war in two POW camps; Oflag VIIB at Eichstaet near Nuremberg on the River Danube, where he survived on the meagre rations in a bitterly cold climate. By the time he moved to Oflag VIIC in Laufen, Austria his clothes were in rags. Red Cross parcels made all the difference and the contents were used to brew their own beer one Christmas to aid the celebrations, in which even the guards joined in. He was also in the camp made famous by the escape from a tunnel built under the wooden vaulting horse.

Harold Kidd kept in contact with his old Regiment where he was a popular member of the Great Ayton Conservative
Club.

Harold Kidd's wife, Rosamund, died four years ago after a happy and fulfilling life together running the family firm, Kidd's Business Services. They leave a son, John, and two daughters, Janet and Diana, seven grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren to whom we send our condolences.

Ex-Staff Sergeant J P King

Dave Holmes writes:

I am sad to announce the death of an old friend of mine - John Patrick King (ex 1st Battalion).

John was only 60 years old, born in Middlesbrough in November 1943, one of 16 children. He died on Sunday 22nd February 2004 in what was the old South Tees Hospital in Middlesbrough. The past few years had seen John in poor health. He was buried in Middlesbrough on Tuesday 2nd March 2004 after a moving service at Saint Frances RC Church, which was attended by family, friends and members of the Regiment. Middlesbrough Branch kindly provided an Escort and Standard Bearer for the funeral. His wife Pat, five children and four grandchildren survive him.

John served with the Regiment from 1963 until his discharge in October 1977. I had known John well for over 40 years. We first met in Tripoli, Libya in 1964 when we worked together in theBattalion Orderly Room under the leadership and guidance of ORQMS Ken Angell in a team that consisted of Larry Lloyd, Paul Collins, Vie Allport, Major Briggs, and Bob Armstrong - I firmly believe that it was in this period that Johns career in the Army was shaped. I seem to remember that John knew off by heart the Personal Numbers of all the Officers and the Regimental numbers of most of the 1st Battalion!! Pat joined John in Married Quarters in Tripoli and what followed was a family friendship between our families that has lasted years, culminating in Bridie and I being godparents to their daughter Rachael.

John went on to do well everywhere he went - HQ Coy Clerk, Quartermasters Clerk, Families Office/Rear Party and so on. He saw overseas service in Libya, Hong Kong and Singapore, BAOR and Northern Ireland and I know he was very proud when he was posted back to his hometown of Middlesbrough, joining the Army Careers and Information Office as a Regimental Recruiter. Our paths were to cross again when we were neighbours in theMarried Quarters on Acklam Road in Middlesbrough before he was to buy his own home in Linthorpe.

We both left the Army at about the same time and John followed a successful career with Magnet Joinery both in Teesside and in Scotland, however he returned to Teesside and for a while both he and Pat ran their own business in Redcar. John was also heavily involved in charitable works on Teesside, which was borne out by the large turnout at his funeral. Over the past couple of years our paths crossed only a few times but it wasn't too long before we started reminiscing about the Regiment and the friends we had made. When I passed on The Green Howards Gazette he would read it from cover to cover, scouring it for news of old comrades.

In his later years John's health wasn't too good but it still came as a deep shock when Pat told me that he had died. At this sad time we can look back at some of the happier times and to thank John for allowing us to spend that part of our lives with him.

Major Peter Kirby

Major Peter Kirby is credited with being the inspiration for the current location of the Green Howards Regimental Museum in Trinity Church, in Richmond. The following account appears in "The Museum Story" on these web pages;-

In 1970, Colonel Jonathan Forbes entertained Major Peter Kirby, formerly an officer in 4th Green Howards during WWII, - then Curator of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers Museum - in the King's Head Hotel.   Peter Kirby pointed through the window of the hotel at the redundant Holy Trinity Church, now up for sale in the market place: "That s the place for your Museum.   It's in an ideal location."

Major General Desmond Gordon, the Colonel of the Regiment, liked the idea when he was told that the Ripon Diocese would let the church for a peppercorn rent but blanched at the proposed cost of the conversion.   Decisions were made, fund raising committees formed and £90,000 collected in two years by the Regiment and its supporters.   Conversion began on the main body of the church, leaving a small east chapel where 24 people would be able to worship before an altar and large stained glass window.   In July 1973, the new Museum was officially opened by the Colonel-in-Chief of the Green Howards, King Olav V of Norway.

Major J R Chapman MBE writes:

Peter Kirby died at his home at Dyffryn near Capel Curig in North Wales on 19th August 2003. He was 92 years old.

Although Peter lived for the greater part of his life in North Wales, he always considered himself first as a Yorkshireman; and although associated with the Royal Welch Fusiliers - as Curator of their Museum in Caernafon Castle and a Major in the RWF (TA) for over 5 years - he was a(TA) for over 5 years - he was a loyal Green Howard. He won a Military Cross near Arras with the 4th Battalion during the withdrawal to Dunkirk in 1940, and fought in the Western Desert before being medically evacuated to England.

Born in Middlesbrough on 7th June 1911 but spent many of his holidays in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales. He was sent to Shrewsbury School where he excelled at sport and science. He started a degree course in Civil Engineering at Newcastle University, but did not complete the programme preferring to switch to chartered surveying After becoming an Associate of the Auctioneers and Valuers Association in 1937 at the age of 26 years, he was appointed assistant agent to Sir Alfred Pease Bt, and managed his estate on land to the north of the River Tees.

Aware that war was imminent. Sir Alfred suggested that he should join the local territorial infantry unit, 4th Battalion, The Green Howards who headquarters were in Middlesbrough. With his skill at paperwork, Peter was soon Assistant Adjutant. When the Munich Crisis accelerated the need for TA battalions to be brought up to wartime establishment, and later to be expanded, he was involved with recruiting and forming a new 6th Battalion from a nucleus of officers and NCOs from his own unit.

Although designated as a 'motorised battalion', the 4th Battalion had very little transport. Peter could remember the annual summer camp in 1939, when tanks were simulated by Lance Corporals riding around on push-bikes with a placard dangling from a string around their respective necks emblazoned "TANK" ! Also flags were used for machine guns. Years of under-funding was to pay its price, with ill-equipped and under-trained territorial battalions being pushed into battle against a formidable and efficient military machine, which was the German Army.

After mobilisation in October 1939, the 4th Battalion welcomed a new commander. Lieutenant Colonel C N Littleboy MC and Bar, who immediately selected 2Lt Peter Kirby as his Intelligence Officer and then proceeded to train the men hard for what he knew was ahead. The battalion marched for miles around the Cotswolds from their training camp at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and fired their rifles repeatedly. On 17th January 1940, the 4th Battalion, now part of 50th (Northumbrian) Division, was inspected by HM King George VI in the snowbound town centre, then moved south to embark at Southampton en route for France. By February, the battalion was based at Wavrin close to the Belgium border where they remained until 16th May 1940, before moving east to take up defensive positions on the River Dendre.

It was on the 23rd May, that 2Lt Peter Kirby was awarded an immediate Military Cross for his calm behaviour in remaining in an observation post in the attic of a four-storey French cafe in Athies near Arras, during the withdrawal, reporting back enemy movement for over 24 hours until his position was destroyed by artillery fire. He fell all four floors when a German tank drove into the main entrance of the estaminet. After Peter Kirby's successful recapture of a bridge on a fighting patrol, Colonel Littleboy promoted him to Captain and gave him command of 'C' Company, a position he held for the subsequent withdrawal to Dunkirk and the final embarkation from the Mole at 9pm on 2nd June 1940. The 4th and 5th Battalions were amongst the very last units to be picked up by the Royal Navy.

After re-equipping and retraining in England, the 4th Battalion moved with 150 Brigade of 50 Division to the Middle East. Between 22nd April and 30th October 1941 they served in Palestine, Cyprus and Egypt, before moving into Libya. Temporary Major E L Kirby MC was soon in action with 'C' Company as part of an armoured column penetrating deep into the desert. On 13th March 1942, just to the north of Bir Hacheim, Peter Kirby was badly wounded when the ambulance, taking him to 50 Division Field Hospital for severe puffing-up of his face and sun blindness, was blown up by an enemy aircraft. Everyone was killed except Peter Kirby. Eventually he was found, given first aid and finally evacuated to Cairo, from whence he was sailed back to England on a hospital ship that narrowly escaped being sunk by enemy bombers. He always felt that his war experiences marked him out as a very lucky man. He learned later that Lt Col Littleboy had put his name forward for the DSO for his capture of two German officers in a vehicle who had maps with the German battle plans for operations around Bir Hacheim. The recommendation was not accepted.

Once recovered, he was posted as an instructor at the Royal Military College Sandhurst, then on 16th May 1943 was appointed to command No 1 (RMC) Battle Training Camp at Capel Curig, North Wales responsible for training officers under live-firing conditions. His success in this role and the development of the training camp allowed him to retain this post until the end of WW2 when he was posted onto the Reserve of Officers.

After the war, Peter ran a small hand-made furniture business near Capel Curig and joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers (TA) where he gained the substantive rank of Major, commanding HQ Company. He was made a Trustee of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Caernarfon Castle in 1960 and, three years later, was commissioned as Deputy Lieutenant of Caernafonshire (later Gwynedd) and awarded a bar to his Territorial Decoration.

It was in 1965, when invited to be the Curator of the RWF Museum, that he started his distinguished service for the Council of Museums in Wales (being a Founder Member) the Museums Documentation Association, the National Museum of Wales and the Welsh Federation of Museums and Galleries. In 1987, he was awarded a Fellowship of the Association FMA in recognition of his 'Distinguished contribution made to Museum Development'.

His old Regiment, The Green Howards had one other occasion to thank him. In 1970, Peter Kirby returned to North Yorkshire to visit the small regimental museum in the Depot barracks on Gallowgate Hill overlooking Richmond Castle and the River Swale. The Regimental Secretary and Curator, Colonel Jonathan Forbes, was bemoaning the fact that few visitors were prepared to climb the steep hill to see the wonderful regimental historic collections. By that time, Peter Kirby was a much respected Curator of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Caernafon Castle. On driving through Richmond, Peter had noticed that the medieval church in the centre of the market place had just been made redundant. He strongly persuaded his old friend, Jonathan Forbes, to make this the new location for The Green Howards Regimental Museum. Three years later, on 25th July 1973, the new Museum was opened by HM King Olav V of Norway, the Colonel-in-Chief of The Green Howards, in Holy Trinity Church. For the last 30 years Peter Kirby has always been credited as the inspiration behind choosing The Green Howards present location in the centre of this busy market town of Richmond, the heart of The Green Howards.

The Green Howards were represented by Major R L Taylor at his Memorial Service in Betws-y-Coed on 12th September 2003.

We extend our condolences to his son, Tony Kirby, and his family in Otley, and his daughter, Susi Greenwood, who lives in Scorton.

Major Peter Kirby died in August 2003, and the following obituaries were published in

"The Times" (16 October 2003),
and
"The Daily Telegraph" (14 October 2003);-

From "The Times", 16 October 2003

PETER KIRBY became a lifelong enthusiast for whatever came his way: designing bridges, the Army, carving furniture and, perhaps above all, the restoration of structures and walks associated with his beloved Snowdonia, in collaboration with his second wife Esmé. Although he was a Yorkshireman with many of the unmistakable traits of the breed, he also came to relish the rather different ethos of Wales.

Edward Lisle Kirby — “Peter” was a boyhood nickname he never tried to shed — was the eldest son of Captain F. W. Kirby, of Leyburn, Yorkshire. Educated at Shrewsbury, he was studying for an engineering degree at Durham when offered a post in the bridge construction department of Dorman Long & Co. His main responsibility was survey work for the Tees Newport vertical-lift bridge project but he also had charge of 30 navvies sinking caissons to a depth of 170 ft.

Supervising these tough and worldly men proved useful training for his military service.

Later, he was working as assistant agent to Sir Alfred Pease, Bt, of Pinchinthorpe, Cleveland, when the British Government decided, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, to double the size of the Territorial Army in an effort to make good the 36 Czech divisions lost to the potential Western alliance. Kirby joined 4th Battalion The Green Howards TA. Called to full-time service in September 1939, he sailed with his battalion in the following January to join the British Expeditionary Force in France. During the battle of France in May 1940, he was awarded an immediate Military Cross for his gallantry at Athies, when the 50th (Northumbrian) Division was making a fighting withdrawal from Arras.

After evacuation through Dunkirk, he served with the 4th Green Howards in the Western Desert in 1941-42 but was taken seriously ill with a fever while commanding a mobile column of infantry, tanks and artillery, which led to his evacuation to England. Once recovered, he was posted as a battle-experienced instructor to the wartime officer training unit at Sandhurst. This led to his first connection with Wales, as he was chosen to command the Sandhurst battle camp at Capel Curig, in North Wales, where he served until the end of hostilities.

It was while there that he met his future wife, Esmé Firbank (obituary October 27, 1999) who was sheep farming at Dyffryn Mymbyr (“the Valley of Many Streams”). After demobilisation, Kirby established a workshop at Dyffryn Mymbyr for hand-made furniture and was eventually commissioned to carve the bardic chairs for two national eisteddfodau. He was closely involved in the work of the Snowdonia National Park Society from its establishment in 1967 and was joined by his wife on her retirement from farming in 1968, when she took over chairmanship of the society.

Working together — his wife handling the paperwork and he planning the environmental projects — they set about clearing eyesores from the slopes of Snowdon, restoring stone walls and campaigning against unsuitable development proposals in the National Park. Their efforts resulted in the restoration of the distinctive milestones on Telford’s road through Wales and renovation of the tiny church of St Julitia in Capel Curig. When differences between his wife and the society led to their resignation in 1994, they set up the Esmé Kirby Snowdonia Trust to concentrate on maintaining old footpaths and establishing new ones in the area of Capel Curig. Kirby himself made all the wooden bridges and stiles on the Glyder Fach mountain path, which were put in position largely by his “Heavy Brigade” of volunteers from the armed forces.

He never lost his interest in the Army and joined the 6th/7th Battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers TA in 1958 in his wartime rank of major. When the regimental depot was closed, he was invited to design the layout for the new regimental museum opened in the Queen’s Tower of Caernarfon Castle in 1960. Stairs to the tower and the showcases were made in Kirby’s workshop at Dyffryn Mymbyr.

Kirby was a trustee of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum until he became its curator in 1965. In the subsequent 16 years to his retirement in 1981, the annual intake of visitors increased threefold to more than 300,000.

He had not forgotten his former regiment, however, and during a nostalgic visit to Richmond had the idea of the Green Howards acquiring the redundant church in the marketplace as the location for a new, more readily accessible museum than the former building on Richmond Hill. He was present when the museum was opened in the former Holy Trinity Church by King Olav V of Norway, Colonel-in-Chief of the Green Howards, in 1973.

He chaired the Council of Area Museum Chairmen in 1982-83, served on the courts of governors of the National Museum of Wales and of the National Library of Wales, and was a member of the committee of the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum, 1979-88. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Caenarfonshire (now Gwynedd) from 1963.

His wartime marriage to Sheila Lofthouse was dissolved, and his second wife, Esmé Firbank, predeceased him. He is survived by a son and daughter of his first marriage.

“Peter” E. L. Kirby, MC, TD, DL, soldier, woodcarver and conservationist, was born on June 7, 1911. He died on August 19, 2003, aged 92.

From "The Daily Telegraph", 14 October 2003

Peter Kirby, who has died aged 92, was one of that breed of shrewd, practical retired majors on whose voluntary efforts small communities throughout the country relied heavily after the end of the Second World War.

He established a business producing hand-made furniture outside the village of Capel Curig in north Wales, and became an officer of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (TA). Later, he became a trustee and curator of the regiment's museum at Caernarvon Castle, where he built the showcases and staircases in the Queen's Tower and compiled potted biographies of former officers.

Kirby served on numerous committees, including the Council of Museums in Wales, the National Museum of Wales, the Museums Documentation Association and the Gwynedd Buildings' Preservation Trust; he was also appointed Deputy Lieutenant.

Above all, he and his wife Esme played a leading part in resisting attempts to scar the local landscape with inappropriate commercial and municipal developments. She provided the driving force, but he was the invaluable staff officer, driving her around, writing necessary letters and smoothly liaising with those affronted by her forthright manner. Those exasperated by her dismissal of the rising tide of nationalism were mollified by his ability to understand, if not to speak, Welsh.

The son of a soldier, Edward Lisle Kirby (known as Peter) was born at Middlesbrough on June 7 1911 and educated at Shrewsbury before spending six months down a mine in Co Durham. He started to read Civil Engineering at Durham University, then switched to Chartered Surveying.

In 1937 Kirby became assistant agent to Sir Alfred Pease, Bt, on the river Tees. After the Munich crisis, he joined the Green Howards, which raised a new motorised battalion but was so short of transport that lance-corporals at its summer camp in 1939 rode bicycles with placards saying "TANK".

When the 4th battalion landed in France, Kirby manned an observation post in the attic of a cafe at Athies, near Arras, and continued to report back enemy movements until a German tank fired in his direction, causing him to fall four floors to the ground. He then led a fighting patrol which recaptured and held a bridge, setting a fine example to his men, according to the citation to his MC.

After the Army withdrew to England, Kirby was dispatched to the Middle East, where he was part of an armoured column which penetrated deep into the Libyan desert. He captured two German officers carrying vital maps. But the desert took its toll: suffering from sun blindness and a swollen face, he was in an ambulance on the way back to Cairo when it was attacked by an enemy aircraft; Kirby was the only survivor.

Invalided home, he was posted as instructor, first to Sandhurst and then to run a battle camp at Capel Curig. After the end of hostilities, he found an inducement to stay in the form of Esmé Firbank, whose efforts with her first husband, Tom Firbank, to run the 3,000-acre farm Dyffryn Mymbyr prompted Firbank's best-seller I Bought a Mountain. Firbank had gone off to the war in 1939, and had never returned.

When Kirby's own marriage to Margaret Sheila Lofthouse also ended in divorce, after they had had a son and a daughter, he and Esmé were married in 1947.

His workshop produced a wide range of furniture, including bardic chairs and refectory tables. At the same time he and Esme cleared away "eyesores", repaired stone walls and, most notably, restored the Ugly House at Bettws-y-Coed.

The latter became the headquarters of the Snowdonia National Park Society, which the Kirbys started in 1967 to aid the conservationist cause. After she was ousted from the Society's chairmanship, they continued their work, founding the Esmé Kirby Snowdonia Trust.

In later years they played an invaluable part in repairing the early 19th-century milestones on the A5 to Holyhead. They also helped to protect red squirrels on Anglesey and to repair the medieval St Julitta's Church, in which the funeral services of both the Kirbys were held.

After Esmé's death in 1999, he continued their work, with the aid of Jill Richards, producing a bridge for the Dyffryn low level walk from Capel Curig to the climbers' hotel at Pen-y-Gwryd.

When asked to sum up his attitude to voluntary work, Kirby used to cite the Chinese adage, "Those who say it can't be done should not interfere with the person who is doing it."

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Major Sid Kirk

The following was published in the April 2008 edition of "The Green Howard"

Lt Col David O'Kelly , the Regimental Secretary of The Yorkshire Regiment, writes:

I am sorry to inform you of the death, on the 10th of January 2008, of Major Sid Kirk MBE. Following a long illness, Sid died at the age of 78.

Sid had a long and very distinguished army career. He joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment as a Private soldier recruit at Halifax. In March 1947, he was the Platoon Sergeant of 9 Platoon, C Company in Korea, CSM of Burma Company, followed by a tour as RSM of the York and Lancaster Regiment 1963-66, before being commissioned and returning to 1DWR in 1966.

Sid was QM (Tech) and the QM of the 1st Battalion, The Green Howards from 1971 - 77, in Minden, Chester, Northern Ireland and Berlin. He ended his regular service as QM of the King’s Division Depot, Strensall 1981-84. He went onto serve with the TA as a PSAO in YORK with 2YORKS(V).

Sid Kirk’s funeral service took place at St David’s Church in the village of Airmyn, near Goole, on Friday 18th January 2008. The service was followed by his burial in the grounds of the church.

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The following obituary was published in the December 2000 issue of the "The Green Howards Gazette".

Leslie Knight

Mr Ben Gunn writes:

It is with great regret that I announce the passing of another old comrade, 4395989 Pte L Knight MM.

Leslie Knight was called up in June 1940 and was posted to the 4th Bn where he became a trained wireless operator.   Like many others he was captured by the Germans in North Africa and handed over to the Italians who took him to Italy.   When the Italians capitulated in 1943 along with others he escaped.   He was then on the run for eight months, during which time he was re-captured three times escaping on each occasion.   He finally made it back to the 8th Army lines at Umbertidi and the lOth Indian Division.   He was sent back to the UK on ex POW leave and then was transferred into the Royal Corps of Signals in Oct 1944 and posted to the 43rd (Wessex) Division.   He was demobbed on 14 June 1946.

His MM was Gazetted on the 20 July 1945 but unfortunately his citation cannot be traced.   To his wife Gwen, daughter Lorraine, grandchildren and great grand-children we extend our sincere sympathy in their great loss.

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