Malpas and the Home Front

Malpas and the Home Front

Published in 2005 to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2.

It is based on interviews with twenty-five individuals who lived in Malpas during the war, backed up with extensive research into newspapers and into records in the National and Cheshire archives.

Subjects covered include:

• the effects on the town of the outbreak of war, including reception and housing of evacuees from Liverpool and London;
• church, chapel and school life during the war;
• wartime farming, including the contributions of the Women's Land Army and prisoners-of-war;
• support for the war effort, including the Women's Institute Fruit Preservation Centre;
• local fund-raising such as 'Spitfire' and 'Salute the Soldier' weeks;
• the Home Guard; Czechs, Poles and Americans on the streets of the town;
• the return home of service women and men after the war.

An appendix provides details of the nineteen men commemorated on the Malpas War Memorial. (See Footnote below)

PUBLISHED 2005 by David Hayns – £5.00

Footnote
During the organisation of the Wartime Roadshow which was part of the Malpas VE80 – The Homcoming event staged in May 2025, extensive research identified that there was a Navy man with Malpas connections that gave his life but has not been commemorated on any other UK Civic War Memorial.

This person was: John Hughes.

The information we have is that he was
Fourth Engineer Officer SS Bullmouth, Canadian Merchant Navy.
Died at sea 29 October 1942. Commemorated on Halifax Memorial Nova Scotia Canada.SS Bullmouth was torpedoed by German submarine U-659 and sunk off the coast of Madeira.
Born in 1917 in Toronto, Canada, the son of John & Elizabeth Hughes.
He was living at 14 Sunnyside at the time of his death.

( Information added by Chris Whitehurst December 2025)