244765 Cpl. Wilfred Featherstone "Pip" Griffin MiD.British Army Royal Signals from:50 Westview Drive, Woodford Green, Essex Wilfred Griffin, my father, joined up early 1939 in the Royal Signals. He and my mother had only been married for just over a year, he was about 29 years old. At first he was a Despatch Rider, based in Hertfordshire, riding motor bikes and possibly driving lorries.
He was at Dunkirk and I think he came back on a fishing boat, but not certain.
He was definitely in the North African campaign, he told his family that Monty addressed the troops and they thought he was wonderful. He was in Tripoli, Sicily, Italy, (I think Austria as he brought home a little girl's Austrian costume for his daughter).
When he was based at Greenham Common, Newbury, in 1941, he found digs for his wife nearby, and his daughter was born in January 1942. He only saw her once again before the end of the war, when she was three years old, she remembers his homecoming in 1945 with a huge knapsack.
There are photos of him in Egypt sitting on a camel in front of the pyramids, in Venice in a gondola, in Rome, plus newspaper cuttings in Italy. The troops were given tickets for the opera whilst there.
His nickname in the army was Pip because his name was Wilfred and there was a cartoon at the time called Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. He would never eat corned beef afterwards as he said it reminded him of bully beef they had in the war. He died in 1972 aged 62 years old.
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