Biography of Len Thurston

Leonard (Len) Thurston was born in West Ham in March 1923, the youngest of six siblings. He attended Leyton County High School and was a passionate cricketer.

Len volunteered to join the navy when he turned 18 in March 1941 and entered basic training in September at HMS Collingwood in Hampshire. He was selected for gunnery training and defensive gunnery was his primary duty on ship. In April 1942 he was sent to the Middle East where he was assigned to ML357 in Port Said at the end of September.

While serving on ML357, Len formed a close friendship with Bill Turner, which lasted after the war. They would see each other regularly and lived close to each other, well into the 1970’s. “Stoker Joe” (Joe Rose) was also a good pal on ML357 and featured in many of Len’s tales of their exploits ashore in Alex!

Len left ML357 at the end of November 1944. He was returned to Britain and assigned to RML528, based on the Clyde, on coastal rescue duty for downed airmen in the North Sea. While there he met a wren called Joan Barnett and they began courting.

Len was discharged from the Navy in May 1946 and he and Joan married in November 1947. Together they later settled in Chingford and had five children and later eight grandchildren. Len worked as a local government officer, but his greatest focus was always on his cricketing interests. He moved into umpiring and became a very well-known character on the club circuit.

He remained enormously proud of his wartime service and naval culture was deeply ingrained in his speech and behaviour. But while he would happily regale listeners with stories of the fun side of service, like so many of his generation he rarely ever spoke (to his family at least) of the military actions he and his crewmates took. On the rare occasion that he did, it was evident that the memories had left a deep and often painful impression.

The last decade of his life were dogged by a number of illnesses and during the one scan, doctors found he only had one kidney - something which must have made his exploits with his mates in ports interesting! He passed away in 2009, having welcomed the first three of his great-grandchildren into the world.

Biography & images: courtesy of Stuart Thurston