PC Richard Sharrock 726.N
| Richard Sharrock as remembered by his daughter Barbara Bittle (nee Sharrock). My Father, Richard Sharrock, was a policeman (photograph attached) stationed at Bethnal Green during the war. During those years he use to cycle from Leytonstone (where we lived) through the bombing to Bethnal Green (which we think took about an hour). At the age of 35, with a young family, he was deeply affected by helping to remove bodies from the stairwell. My brother John (aged 8 at the time) remembers eating his breakfast when Dad returned from work. He recalls Dad speaking in awe of the line of bodies laid out in the road stretching into the distance. Dad did not speak about the disaster as I was growing up, but my Mother told me how much he was affected by having to clear to bodies from the stair-well. I was 4 years old at the time, and shortly afterwards Dad became extremely ill with colitis and had to spend many weeks in St. Thomas's Hospital. Dad eventually became Station Sergeant at Bethnal Green. I realise now that the photo I sent to you was Dad at the age of 21 when he first joined the force on 4th February 1929. He had the picture taken to send back to family in Lancashire (including his fiancé, my Mum). General information re Dad is that initially he lived in the section house before marrying Mum, whereupon she left Lancashire and they rented a Warner flat in Walthamstow. After the war Dad became Station Sergeant at Bethnal Green and received 2 medals - one the defence medal and the other for exemplary police service. |