William Tavendale, a Second World War veteran who narrowly escaped capture at St Valery, has died in his 103rd year.
He was part of the 51st Highland Division battling to hold back advancing German troops to let the British Expeditionary Force leave France through Dunkirk.
Serving with the Royal Army Service Corps, William, known as Bill, had to drive troops to the port of St Valery where ships were to have been waiting.
When he got there, the town was surrounded by German tanks and later a great many men of the 51st were taken into German captivity.
Bill and members of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, however, managed to escape from the area under attack from the air and made it to the comparative safety of Montivilliers.
After serving with the reformed 51st at El Alamein and through Italy, he returned to France on D-Day plus seven to help liberate Europe.
Bill was born at home in Kinnoull Street, Perth, to railwayman Alexander Tavendale and his wife, Daisy, and grew up with siblings, Violet, Isa, Joe, Johnny and Dick.
He was educated at Craigie Primary School before beginning work delivering for a butcher’s shop on a bike with a basket.
Bill later had a spell in deliveries for a vintner in the city before being called up for war service.
After he was demobilised he joined British Transport Police in Edinburgh before transferring to the Perth office when it opened.
His nephew, Brian Tavendale, said the first crime he investigated was the theft of a case of whisky in which the getaway vehicle was a horse and cart.
He escorted murderers and had to accompany the royal train to Ballater for the short transfer of the royals by road to their retreat at Balmoral Castle.
Brian said his uncle would accompany the Queen Mother on her walkabouts in Ballater after leaving the train, and she frequently spoke to him.
Bill also told Brian that the current king was a painfully shy boy who would hide between the seats on the royal train to avoid people seeing him.
In 1951 Bill married Margaret at St Mark’s Church in Perth and although they had no family of their own, they were close to their 12 nieces and nephews.
Charity work
Bill retired from the transport police in 1977 and Margaret died in 1993. In retirement, he played bowls, grew flowers for Motor Neurone Disease research, was a member of the North Church and Lodge 134 of Perth.
Bill was a long-standing season-ticket holder with St Johnstone and could name team lists from away back to the 1930s.
In 2018, Bill was awarded France’s highest military honour, the Legion d’honneur, for the part he played in defending and then liberating France.
The award was presented to him at a ceremony at Balhousie Castle, Perth, by Emmanuel Cocher, France’s consul general to Scotland.
You can read the family’s announcement here.