With the passing on 20.12.02 at the age of 86, of Raymond Milan Brooks, better know as Bob Brooks or Striker, the village loses one of its finest characters. Bob was born on lst December 1916 in the little village of Broadwell in Gloucestershire. The youngest of four brothers and four sisters, his father died in the First World War before he was born. His mother also died when he was young and his brothers and sisters brought him up.
As a young boy he spent a lot of his time fishing around the rivers Windrush and Evenlode, before joining the Army. In the Army he excelled at sports, taking up and winning cups in Shooting, Boxing, Gymnastics and Weightlifting, and enjoying Swimming and Football. He was also the Army Shot Put Champion. At the outbreak of the Second World War Bob had been posted to India. His unit, the 2nd Oxford & Buckinghamshire light Infantry (the 52nd) was recalled, with the First Royal Ulster Rifles and the 12th Battalion Devonshire Regiment, to form the 6th Air landing Brigade (Airborne). On 6th June 1944 the brigade was to take part in `Operation Argonaut’. To be flown over in gliders under the command of Major John Howard to Normandy, Northern France. Their mission was to capture Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal and the bridge at Ranville over the River Orme and to hold them until the main D-Day landings took place. Bob was in the platoon of 38 men who took the bridge over the River Orme, and their objective was achieved. Bob later fought in Arnhem, Holland reaching Osnabruck before being wounded and invalided out. After the war he joined the Military Police stationed at Bovingdon. He was married to a local girl Margaret Bignell and settled down to country life, working mainly as a jobbing gardener or in farm or building work. Together they had four children, Michael, Kathleen, Pete and Linda and eventually twelve grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren. His wife died in 1981.
Under Lou Charmer, he managed Chipperfield Reserves, a side who indeed were unbeaten in any competition for two years! Bob used to take the circuit training in the village institute and although in his Fifties at the time, the players asked him to ease off the training, as he was the only one that could complete it!
His love of fishing continued and many a time his children would come home to see trout and eels in the kitchen sink. Bob also had some rather bizarre eating habits; boiled stinging nettles were not unusual! He also believed in eating raw eggs mixed in with a pint of beer (obviously pre-salmonella days).
Bob’s dog Bruno was also something of a character, not surprisingly being an old English sheepdog-cross-poodle! Bruno could often be found laying in the middle of the road at Tower Hill, awaiting his master’s return from the river, cars actually had to drive round him as he wouldn’t move! Or he could be seen wandering from house to pub to club, poking his head round the door; `Sorry’ the patrons would say, `Bob’s not here Bruno’; and off Bruno would trot to the next one.
We will certainly not see a character like Bob again, and the village will be a sadder place for it.