Percy Charles Guymer

Percy Charles Guymer was born on 25th December 1899 at Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire and spent his early years in the Wolverton and Fenny Stratford area where his father worked in general business. During the First World War he enlisted in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Like many young soldiers of the later war years he was subsequently transferred to the Labour Corps, undertaking the essential but demanding work of road building, transport and supply duties that kept the army operating behind the front lines. His service placed him among the generation whose military experience came not only from combat but from the vast logistical effort required to sustain modern warfare.

After the war he returned to civilian life and in 1929 married Ivy G. Guymer. The couple settled in Hambledon at 13 Stewarts Green where he worked as a plumber and hot water engineer, raising their son Bernard who was born in the village in 1933. During the Second World War he again contributed to national defence as a member of the Royal Observer Corps, the civilian organisation responsible for tracking and reporting aircraft over Britain. Observers worked long hours in exposed posts, identifying aircraft types and plotting movements to assist air defence operations during the period of frequent air raids.

On the evening of 28th March 1944 an anti-aircraft shell fell in the village. Its time fuse failed and the shell detonated on impact beside a bedroom window of the Guymer home. Percy was killed instantly in the explosion. His wife Ivy was seriously injured and taken to Winchester Hospital but survived, while their young son escaped unharmed.

He was buried in Hambledon Churchyard. Unlike most names on the memorial his death occurred not overseas but in the village itself, a reminder that the dangers of the war extended to civilians at home as well as to those serving abroad.