Deryck Allnutt DREW
Deryck Drew in 1937, aged eighteen. Image from The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 1, by Carole Newbigging.
Deryck Drew was born on 29 July 1919 to Walter and Elizabeth Drew. Elizabeth (née Allnutt, hence Deryck’s middle name) was from Church Street, St Ebbe’s, the daughter of a tailor. As a young woman she worked as a parlour-maid. Walter had been born and brought up in Nelson Street, Jericho, one of the seven children of a bricklayer. By the time he was twenty, in 1911, he was working as a college servant at Brasenose College. Following the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted with the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, in March 1915. When he and Elizabeth married in St Ebbe’s Church on 7 September 1918 his place of residence was given as Seaton Delaval, an army base in Northumberland. One of his younger brothers, William, had been killed in action in France two weeks earlier. There is more information about Walter’s family here.
When Walter and Elizabeth’s first son Deryck was born in 1919 they were living with Elizabeth’s parents in Church Street, St Ebbe’s. Walter had returned to his job as a college servant at Brasenose. Two further sons, Albert and Edmund, were born in 1923 and 1930 respectively.
By the mid-1930s the family had moved to 16 Edith Road, Grandpont. In June 1936, when he was sixteen, Deryck was appointed as an assistant clerk in the bursary of Exeter College. His pay was 25 shillings a week (about £112 in today’s money). His wages rose to £1 7s 6d a week in October 1937 and to £1 10s a year later.
Deryck was keen on sport and a member of the Boys’ Brigade swimming team in Grandpont. He also joined the Exeter College Servants’ Recreation Club, paying a subscription of one penny a week (for fifty weeks of the year) out of his wages. This covered the costs of various sporting activities and an annual outing. In 1939 Deryk rowed in the Open Fours, the Open Pairs, the Challenge Fours (rowing at no. 3 and weighing in at 10 stone 6 lbs), and the Oxford University and College Servants’ Recreation Club race.
In early 1939, with the country already on a war footing, Deryck joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Training took place in Headington on two evenings a week, with flying practice at Kidlington aerodrome at weekends. Correspondence between the Bursar at Exeter, the Assistant Commandant of the RAF, and Deryck himself, demonstrates the challenge of combining the demands of military training with college work schedules. A week after war broke out in September 1939 the bursar wrote to nine staff, including Deryck, reassuring them that their jobs would be kept open for when they returned from war; the college would continue to pay its pension contribution; and it would make up any shortfall if their service pay was less than their college salary. In fact, Deryck’s pay as a Sergeant/Pilot (without wings) was 10s 6d a day, roughly double his salary as a college clerk.
In the 1939 register, taken on 29 September, four weeks after the outbreak of war, the Drew family were at home at 16 Edith Road. Deryck’s father Walter was working as a catering manager (possibly still at Brasenose College) and volunteering as an air raid warden. Deryck’s widowed grandfather George was living with them.
On 19 May 1940, at the age of twenty, Deryck was given a commission as a Pilot Officer for the duration of hostilities, service number 79539. He joined 59 Squadron. At the start of the war the squadron had been deployed to France, just west of Amiens, but following the German invasion in May 1940 it returned to its base on Thorney Island in West Sussex. From there the squadron flew reconnaissance sorties over northern France and took part in bombing raids on ports such as Le Havre, from where it was thought that the Germans might launch an attack on Britain.
On the morning of 2 August 1940 Deryck and two crew mates – Observer Arthur Herbert and Gunner/Wireless Operator James Close – set off in their Bristol Blenheim bomber (Mk IV, N3587, TR-K) to search for the crew of another Blenheim which had failed to return to RAF Thorney after a raid on Cherbourg the day before. They were also tasked with carrying out a reconnaissance of Le Havre. Their plane was shot down over the town by a German Messerschmitt fighter (ME-109 E4); all the three crew members were killed. Deryck had just turned 21, Arthur was 22, and James was twenty.
The three crew mates were buried in adjacent plots in Ste Marie Cemetery in Le Havre. The inscription on Deryck’s headstone is from Psalm 23 Verse 4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”.
He is also commemorated on the memorial at the base of Palmer’s Tower in Exeter College, and on the Oxford City WWII Roll of Honour which is in the Church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket.
Deryck left an estate worth just over £669 (about £28,500 in today’s money) to his father Walter. In 1951 Deryck’s younger brother Albert married Paula Marychurch, who lived at 7 Edith Road, a few doors away from the Drew family. Albert and Paula had two children. In 1956 the youngest brother Edmund married Ruth Green, who was from Abingdon; they had three children.
Deryck’s father Walter died in 1982 aged 92, and his mother Elizabeth died in 1984 aged 94. His brother Edmund died in 1998 and Albert died in 2016.
With thanks to Victoria Northridge, Archivist and Records Manager, Exeter College, who kindly granted access to documents relating to Deryck’s work at the college.
Image from The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 1, by Carole Newbigging. (Click on image to close)
The Second World War memorial at Exeter College, Oxford. The Latin inscription "In Piam Memoriam" means "In loving memory of those lost". (Click on either image to close)
