South Yorkshire Times, November 6th 1943
Wath Officer
Has Cousin in Italy
A former pupil of Wath Victoria Council School, Phillip Bracegirdle (22), has received a commission and is now serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the R.E.M.E. He Is a cousin of Driver Neville Bracegirdle, R.H.A., son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bracegirdle. of 50, Oak Road, Wath and both are grandsons of. Mr. J. W. Golicher, 3, Broomhead Road, Wombwell.
Lieut. Bracegirdle was born at Wath, his father, Mr. James Bracegirdle, being then employed at Manvers Main Colliery. Later, Mr. Bracegirdle was an overman at Brodsworth, and is now under-manager at a colliery at Donnington Wood, Shropshire. Lieut. Bracegirdle left Victoria Road, Wath, to go to Maltby Grammar School, and later was a pupil at Worksop and Doncaster Grammar Schools. He won a County Major Scholarship at Doncaster, and graduated B.A. at King’s College, Cambridge. He had specialised in mathematics with a view to taking up an industrial career when he went into the Army, passing from the University O.T.C., to an O.C.T.U.
Driver Neville Bracegirdle is also an old boy of Wath Victoria School and before enlisting in October, I941, was employed at Wath Glassworks. He was drafted to the Middle East in October, 1942, and has been with the 5th Army from the Battle of El Alamein to ‘Tunisia, Sicily and Italy. In his latest letter he says they have knocked off half of Hitler’s “tache” and it’s time to get the pig killed in preparation for the home-coming. He says Italy is colder than they have been used to in North Africa, and the climate at the moment is not unlike “‘Blighty.”