Page 10 - Reggie Pettard and Family Tree.

Reggie Pettard (1926 to 2000)

Reginald Francis Pettard known as Reggie fell in love with his number one fan, to explain, he was a good amateur football player and like all of his kind probably played on a bit long. The team just happened to be run by a manager with a teenage daughter Betty, auntie Betty as I will always call her knowing she would give me an odd look, if to say I am not that much older then you.  This touch line romance blossomed until Betty was old enough to marry.  Reggie like his brother Bill was a very industrious person being skilled in many trades and one who could probably build a house from start to finish.  I am not sure where this ability comes from; however, I know it has been handed down in the family to both Reggie’s and Bill’s sons and their sons.

Reggie was called up before the end of the war and was in the Fleet Air Arm maybe the signals core of the service.  Just a few days before he was due to leave for overseas duty and possible action; he received compassionate leave with the news that the family home had been bombed with injury to his father. The family was living just off

Great Dover Street

, Southwark when the local pub, ‘The Virginia Plant’, maybe another name for the Tobacco plant, received a direct hit from a V bomb, most of the immediate area was flattened so it could have been a V2 rocket bomb.  The impact on the Pettard abode was so severe that the property was totally demolished shortly thereafter. Granddad was at home sick at the time, the blast blew out his bedroom window and he was injured enough to be hospitalized, Margaret also at home caring for her sick father was thrown against the wall as she came down the stairs, Dennis was also thrown across the room when the front door blew in.  Neither Margaret nor Dennis was badly hurt but both had to wait amidst the ruins until their aunt Liz from the Leach family sent for them.  So, it must have been a worrying home coming for Reggie, but at least it kept him in England until the end of the war having missed his posting abroad.

Reggie would eventually leave the shores of England and along with Betty and their two children Karen and Dennis he would emigrate to Australia.  The experience did not prove to be a complete success and while it was a wonderful environment for the two children, it was exceedingly hard work for the parents to settle in a completely new land.  I well remember the day of their return, the family was there to welcome them back at London Airport, and the contrast between the fit and tanned faces of Karen and Dennis compared with that of stress and hardship of their parents faces, told a story.  This short history of the family is dedicated to the memory of Reggie.

	Family of Reggie and Betty Pettard
1954	Marries
Reginald	Betty		1957		1959
Francis	Taylor
Pettard
			Dennis		Karen
			Keith		Louisa
			Pettard		Pettard
1977	Marries
Dennis	Silvi	1981	1985	1990
Keith	Portelli
Pettard
		Mark	Stacey	Cary
		John	Jane	Ann
		Pettard	Pettard	Pettard
		1980	Marries
		Karen	Christopher	1987	1992
		Louisa	Frank
		Pettard	Allum
				Sarah	Kelly
				Jane	Ann
				Allum	Allum