John Halliday

John Halliday loved the outdoor life

John Halliday, pictured, of Hamfield, Wantage, died in the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, last month, and was buried at Wantage Cemetery on September 9.

Mr Halliday had worked as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.

He then devoted his energies to welfare work for the charity and, with his wife Dorothy, took groups of disabled and elderly people on holidays to Somerset.

Mr Halliday also regularly helped out at fund- raising events, and will be remembered for his lively bingo calling.

Born in Dumbarton in 1914, Mr Halliday served an apprenticeship as an upholsterer before moving to England to find work.

In 1939 he joined the Army and was in one of the first contingents to be sent out to France after the outbreak of the Scond World War.

He was evacuated at Dunkirk and was stationed in Wantage in June 1940, where he met Dorothy. The couple married six months later at Wantage Parish Church.

Soon afterwards he was sent to Iraq as a member of the Royal Army Service Corps, helping get supplies to Russian allies over the border.

When he returned home in 1945 he met his three-year-old daughter Margaret for the first time.

The couple had two other daughters Susan and Marion, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

After a spell in Surrey, the family settled in Wantage in 1948, living in Ormond Road, then Springfield Road.

Mr Halliday ran an upholstery business for seven years, then worked as a lorry driver for Atomic Energy Research at Harwell and as a driver for Oxford City Buses.

He loved spending time with his family, exploring the countryside, poetry and a glass of whisky.

The couple also enjoyed taking their children and grandchildren on camping and caravan holidays throughout the Britain, particularly Scotland.

Mrs Halliday said: "He was always cheerful, always had a smile for everyone -- he was a very popular man."