Earlier this week, Wokingham’s member of parliament Clive Jones, planted a cross in the Constituency Garden of Remembrance in Westminster in memory of an Emmbrook man, and all those from Wokingham who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.
Alfred Henry Grover died in action in France in September 1944, and he was chosen because in 2019, he became the most recent name to be added to the Wokingham war memorial, following research by local historian Peter Shiham.
Information provided by Wokingham Town Council noted that Alfred Grover was born in 1923 in Emmbrook. His parents lived at Toutley Hall Cottage on what is now known as Old Forest Road. His father was a chauffeur and was employed at Toutley Hall, and Alfred was a member of the Emmbrook football team.
During the Second World War, Alfred was a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps, having enlisted on August 6, 1942, at the age of 19.
On September 5, 1944, his lorry was ambushed by the retreating Waffen SS. He hid his co-driver in a ditch while he fired at the enemy until his ammunition was exhausted.
He was believed to have been captured, but local sources suggested he was killed in action in Santes, at the same place as five French resistance fighters and a German soldier.
The following day, Allied troops found Alfred dead and the other driver injured. He was buried at the roadside, and then removed to Haubourdin where there were British military graves, and ultimately to the Commonwealth War Graves at Lille Southern cemetery.
Adrian Betteridge, the armed forces champion for Wokingham Borough Council, and a former member of the forces himself, told Wokingham Today how, every year, an area within the palace of Westminster, is set aside for MPs to remember people from their constituencies.
