Arthur Bertie Vernon

Heavy smoker but never known to drink alcohol or use a public house. He used to save up the coupons from his cigarettes and send off for useful items like sheets from the cigarette company gift catalogue, which he would then give to his wife Rebecca, from whom he was separated.

As a consequence of being born and brought up in India (where his father was a career soldier in the Royal Field Artillery) he could speak Urdu and probably learned to speak Hindi as a child as he was largely brought up by an Indian amah till he was aged 5. At about age 5 he was sent to an Army Boarding School (Abu Lawrence). Enjoyed Indian food and lived amongst Indian families in UK with ease.

Sent back to the UK (Oxford) to finish his education c. 1925. Thought to have lived with paternal grandparents in Oxford before moving to Coventry, where his parents settled after they returned from India. Coventry was probably chosen because Lilley Vernon had a sister already living there.

After leaving full-time school he worked as a capstan lathe operator until he joined the 2nd battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment. He saw service in Malta, the northwest frontier of India and Shanghai. After completing Army service he returned to Coventry. finding it difficult to find work, he enlisted in the Palestine Police force and was stationed in Jerusalem. It was whilst in Palestine that he met and married Rebecca. Two children were born in Palestine, Reginald George in 1941 and Daphne Lillian in 1943. The family returned to England in 1946 to live with his mother and brother Walter at 32 Dugdale Road, Radford.

Arthur worked for Coventry City transport as a bus conductor. The family moved to 18 Hainault Crescent, an ex-Army centrally heated bungalow on an estate in the Cheylesmore district of Coventry, close to Whitley aerodrome (the first test flights of the Armstrong-Whitworth 'flying wing' aircraft actually came over the bungalow on a landing approach).

After living for a few years at 10 Freeman Street, Bell Green, Coventry, the family returned to Israel to live for 16 months with Rebecca's parents and her sister Lavana at no. 26 Rehov (street) Nun, in the Hatikva district of Tel-Aviv. Arthur found work painting bus chassis and then worked for major civil engineering contractor Solel Boneh as a labourer.