Major Thomas Joyce Parry of Petton Hall was a member of the 2nd Shropshire Battalion of the Home Guard whose responsibility was for Oswestry and the surrounding area. He is listed as a lieutenant in the February 1941 Home Guard list amongst some 60 other officers and was later promoted to Captain and eventually to Major.  With the latter rank he would have been commanding one of the Battalion's companies.Through the good offices of his daughter and a grandson a number of fascinating images of the unit in which he served have come to light.  They are reproduced on this page.

The first image is of group of officers engaged on an exercise in the countryside. Captain (at that time) Parry is standing second from the left and looking at the camera. Did he and his comrades  welcome the photographer's intrusion whilst busy defending the realm?

Perhaps the following image relates to the same occasion: a group of Home Guards traverse open countryside.

The following image may or may not be part of the Oswestry sequence as the uniforms appear unusual: berets rather than forage caps and belted raincoats.

But the following photographs are clearly Home Guard. They depict a major parade through the streets of a town which one must assume to be Oswestry and we see the view from the saluting base where succeeding units - platoons or companies - march past, led by their commanders. This parade will almost certainly have been  been on the occasion of one of the anniversaries of the founding of the service each May; the pleasant weather rules out the possibility of its being the final stand-down parade on Sunday December 3rd, 1944.

The final image in this collection shows a gathering of unit members in the gymnasium of Petton Hall. The occasion is regrettably unknown. As time went on, Home Guard units did develop quite an extensive range of social activities for members and their families - for entertainment, morale-boosting and unit fund-raising - and the photograph may show one of them. But more likely is a gathering of members at the time of stand-down or even a reunion party at a later date. Thomas Parry is sitting cross-legged at the fron, second from the right. The gentleman seated in the middle of the second row from the front is Mr. W. Onions.

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