Clifford Thomas Deacon was born on 13 December 1893 in Morriston, Swansea. He was the son of J. Thomas Deacon and his first wife Mary Bryant.

Clifford is listed in the 1901 Census living with his parents and younger sister at 7 Strawberry Place, Llangyfelach. Morriston. His father, Thomas, was working a Mason (House Builder). Shortly after, Clifford’s mother died of Tuberculosis and his father remarried.

Cliff Deacon was educated at the Swansea Municipal Secondary School, leaving in 1909 and in the 1911 Census, he is shown living with his father and second wife at 54 Slate St, Morriston. In the census, he is listed as 17 years old and had started working as a plumbers apprentice.

He also had a strong faith and was a member of the Libanus Church and Sunday School in Morriston. Through the church he was also active in Operattas, playing Carl in a performance of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ in March 1913 and the lead role, Baron Honeysweet in ‘Majorie’ in April 1914. According to his family, this was a past-time that he enjoyed for the rest of his life.

At the age of 20, following the outbreak of the Great War, he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery. In a surviving service record (dated 1917), his occupation was given as Plumber and he was described his as being 5 foot 8 and a half inches tall, light born hair, light blue eyes and a fair complexion. He also gave his address as Hillside, Slate Street, Morriston.

His grandson recounted: Family history reports confirm that he was injured in combat (taking shrapnel through the bottom jaw which exited through the upper front lip) – leaving a scar which he later covered with a mustache that he maintained until his death. Family history also reports that during his convalescence he met my Grandmother (Gertrude Enid Webster) in her capacity as a hospital volunteer and the girlfriend of one of his “mates” from military service.

Between departure from active military service [in 1919] and his marriage to my Grandmother in late 1925 he entered the colonial civil service in the West Indies, first taking a position in Scarborough, Tobago. Various sources indicate he returned to Swansea to marry Enid. Clifford and Enid went on to have 2 children, Michael (1930) and David (1937).

His grandson continued: Both oral and documented sources indicate that Clifford worked in water treatment and civil engineering during his service both in Tobago and Trinidad. Trinidad, like many of the local islands in that region is relatively arid-with few large (if any) freshwater rivers and little rainfall. While I don’t know for sure, I assume Clifford Thomas worked on dam projects throughout the 1930s and later that formed the basis for Trinidad’s modern hydrologic infrastructure.

I know little about Clifford and Enid’s activities through the [second world] war years and after. Eventually Clifford and Enid moved to Clearwater, Florida where he was employed with organizing contract labour from the West Indies to various parts of the United States (in the Florida sugar industry and the upper Mid-West). They also must have resided in Trinidad for a period of time.

After he retired, Clifford and Enid finally settled in Brighton where he passed away in 1969.

His grandson concluded: Everything I have heard second-hand (through my mother as well as others) is that Clifford Thomas was a true gentleman in the classic sense. My mother adored him and the esteem in which he was held obviously resulted in my naming for him upon birth and christening.

1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade, RFA – 1914-1917

Clifford Thomas Deacon enlisted in the 1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade as a Gunner on 14 September 1914 and was given the Brigade Service Number of 985.

Unfortunately, his RFA Service Record was destroyed during the Blitz. However, using the surviving fragments of information coupled with family sources, it is still possible to provide an outline of his War.

After he enlisted, Gnr. Deacon would have trained at the Brigade Depot in Swansea and is included in a photograph of the recruits as they reached the end of their training published in the Cambria Daily Leader in December 1914.

After his training, he would have travelled to Cambridge to join the Brigade and in May 1915, moved to Bedford where they continued their training. By this time, he had been transferred to the 2nd Glamorgan Battery and is included in a photograph taken by 985, Gnr. R.J. Williams as well as listed as one of the members of A Sub (both are included in the RJ Williams Album in the Image Library).

The Brigade finally received orders to move to France in November 1915, and according to his surviving Medal Index Card, Gnr. C.T. Deacon was one of the 401 men who travelled from Southampton on 21 November 1915, arriving in Le Havre on the following day.

From Le Havre, the Brigade travelled to the Somme to undertake frontline training in an area close to Albert which would mark the Southern edge of the Somme battlefield just 6 months later.

Whilst there are no records to confirm this, it is reasonable to assume that Gnr. Deacon travelled with the rest of the Brigade to Egypt in February 1916, making the dangerous 5 day crossing between Marseilles and Alexandria.

From Alexandria, he would have travelled to Beni Salama where the Brigade acclimatized to desert conditions and rejoined the rest of the 53rd Welsh Division who had suffered badly at Gallipoli. It is also likely that he would have visited Cairo and many of the men had photos taken in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids.

In May 1916, the Brigade took over a sector of the Suez Canal Defences which was hot and uninteresting work. As a member of the 2nd Battery, he would have been stationed at Serapeum.

During the summer of 1916, their commander, General Murray decided that attack was the best form of defence and drew up plans to capture Jerusalem and finally in November, the army started the long, hot and thirsty march across the Sinai Desert that ended with the fist 2 unsuccessful Battles of Gaza in early 1917. It is not known whether Gnr. Deacon served in these Battles.

Royal Flying Corps - 1917-1919

A surviving Royal Flying Corps record confirms that Gnr. Deacon transferred to the RFC on 2 April 1917 as a Motor Cyclist with the rank of Air Mechanic 2nd Class. His grandson added: According to my Father, Clifford Thomas was recruited due to his experience before the war either selling or working on automobiles and as a result familiar with modern technology for the time.

According to his family, he had always been interested in flying and in a RFC service sheet it states that he was Passed as fit for full duty as a Flying Officer by a Medical Board in Heliopolis (near Cairo) on 9 February 1918.

It is not clear exactly when AM2 Deacon commenced his flying training, however on 1 April 1918 when he transferred to the RAF (at its formation), he is still recorded as a Motor Cyclist with the rank of Private 1.

Fortunately, an incomplete RAF record has survived that provides more clues. Whilst the start date of his flying training is not known, it appears that he trained at 58 Training School (58 TS) in Suez. There, he would have undertaken approximately 2 months in a School of Aviation and then moved on to flight training. At this point, it appears that his training was interrupted and he returned to the UK at the end of July 1918.

Again, his family adds to the story: Family history confirm he was injured in combat. My mother reported to me that his injury was caused by shrapnel which entered through his lower jaw and exited out his upper lip—destroying his teeth and leaving a scar which he later covered up with a mustache that he maintained until his death. It is possible that this injury led to the interruption in his flight training.

Flying Cadet Deacon arrived back in the UK in August 1918 and after a brief period of leave started his basic flying training – most likely on Avro 504k’s – at 21 Training Depot Squadron (21 TDS) at Driffield in Yorkshire.

According to Royal Aero Club records, Flight Cadet C.T. Deacon finally qualified as a pilot in an Avro Biplane at the Military School, Driffield (Yorkshire) on 31 December 1918 and his family proudly retain a number of photographs associated with his time flying.

As the War was over, it is not certain whether he completed his advanced flying training, although once again, family stories make reference to him flying Sopwiths, which suggests that he may have continued. C.T. Deacon transferred to the RAF Reserve on 20 March 1919.

For his service in the Great War, Clifford Thomas Deacon was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Trinidad Light Horse, Caribbean Territorial Guard

In the 1930’s, Clifford Deacon joined the Trinidad Light Horse, ultimately attaining the rank of Major. His family recollected: he played a role in suppressing labour unrest and race riots in 1937-38 and played an undocumented but much discussed role with MI-5 during the pre and actual World War II years “rounding up” Nazis in and around the Caribbean. Given the sensitivity of Trinidad’s naval bases (occupied by the U.S. Navy prior to the outbreak of the war in the Pacific), the necessity of Trinidad’s oil products (the largest oil refinery in the British Empire was located in Point-a-Pierre” near San Fernando) to the British Imperial war effort, and the extremely high toll on shipping taken by Nazi submarines—it is clear there was plenty for someone of my Grandfather’s connections, local geographic knowledge, and probable colonial connections to do in this regard.

My mother also has recounted at least one “case” of my grandfather’s during the war in which he apprehended a Nazi agent in Port of Spain, the German wife of a British colonial official who was caught broadcasting on a clandestine radio. My grandfather arrested her and escorted her to Curacao where she was incarcerated. According to my mother he often disappeared for weeks—with little, if any, indication of where or what he was up to.