Remarkable coincidence for Darwen brothers after a week at sea (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Remarkable coincidence for Darwen brothers after a week at sea

12:19pm Thursday 24th November 2011 in Looking Back By Gill Johnson, Features writer

THIS week, Looking Back tells the story of a remarkable coincidence involving two Darwen brothers during wartime.

It comes from their nephew Ken Brooks, who played table tennis for Bangor Boys’ Club, in Blackburn, and now lives in America.

It was 1942 and his troop ship – bound for Egypt, though the men did not know it – had been at sea a week, when sailor Harry Brooks needed a match for his cigarette.

Tapping the nearest bloke on the shoulder, he asked ‘could you let me have a light, pal?’ ‘Sure’ came the reply and, as the soldier on draft turned round, Harry found himself face to face with his brother, Frank.

When news reached Darwen of the unexpected meeting, the story was published in a local newspaper.

The war stories of the two brothers are quite different.

They parted at Port Suez where Harry, an engine room mechanic, served some time at the naval base. After the war, he returned home.

Frank, who was a gunner/signaller with the The Royal Field Artillery, was sent into Iraq as part of the force defending against the possibility that the Germans may advance through Russia, and down through the Caucasus into the Iraqi oilfields.

Six months later he was posted to India, fighting in monsoons and hilly, jungle terrain to drive a huge Japanese force back into Burma.

Mission completed Frank contracted typhus in October 1944 and died.

He is buried in the War Cemetery at Imphal.

Harry worked in the service department at Walpamur, and became depot manager for the firm in York.

He married Alice Shaw, from Lower Darwen and, in 1942, had one son Michael John.

Frank, who lived in Nicholas Street, Darwen, was a flagger for the corporation and was also a keen gardener and poultryman.

The brothers’ father was Ernest Brooks, who built a lot of the large homes in Earnsdale Avenue – the family also lived in the Bungalow there.

He also built a row of houses in Sunnyhurst Lane, where a stone plaque embedded on the front states ‘Hurstwood Terrace. E.B. 1910’ – and the lych gate at the top of Sunnyhurst Woods.

As a young apprentice, Ernest worked on the original cupola on top of Darwen Tower, around 1899.

When the old cupola blew off in a storm in 1949, the replacement fibreglass dome was built by a Darwen company owned by Ernest’s grandson, Teddy Brooks.