Tuckey Oakes Family Tree

On leaving school, Stan worked in the Leith offices of the shipping line Christian Salveson (at that time his brother Ross was a seaman for the same company).

At the age of 21 during World War 2 Stan took part in the Normandy Landings - landing at Caen on D-Day* + 18, manning an anti-tank gun. His unit arrived at the death camp at Belsen very shortly after it was freed from Nazi control. Stan was not one to talk about his wartime experiences - it was at his funeral that his visit to Belsen was mentioned.

After the war, he and Alice moved to London where he worked for National Savings. When National Savings opened their Premium Bond offices in Lytham St Annes, Lancs., he and Alice moved there.

He gained promotion and a change of Department to the County Court in Chester where he was Clerk to the Court, but often acted up to higher grades both there and in Liverpool.

After retirement Stan would recount the tale of one Crown Court case where the judge wrote a memo and had the Court usher pass it to Stan. It read "I'm going to a dinner tonight. What colour tie do you think I should wear?" After due deliberation, Stan wrote "I think you should wear a red tie" and passed it back via the Court usher. Later while the case was still being held the Judge returned the memo via the usher. He had added "I thought you might - you bloody socialists are all the same."

*More on the Normandy Landings in WWII
Over sixty years later, the Normandy invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord, still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy in then German-occupied France. It is most commonly known by the name D-Day.

The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, naval bombardments, and an early morning amphibious phase began on the 6th June 1944. The “D-Day” forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth. The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads, and concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise pocket in late August 1944. Stan's date of arrival in France was 18 days after June 6th, viz. 24th June 1944.