Noel Roberts
Warrant Officer Noel Roberts, service number: 590902, served in the Royal Air Force. He died on Christmas 1944, aged 27. He is buried in the Cambria Rout de Solesmes Cemetery in France, but his real home is in Ystrad Mynach with father Arthur Fredrick and mother Ruth Roberts, or with his wife Ruby Irene Roberts, of Upholland, Lancashire.
The school did not have internet databases or social media to find out who had died during the war. In the school archive are several letters like this one, where family members have to inform the school that the Old Boy they have written to was killed in action. It must have been very upsetting to receive a letter addressed to a son that had died, but most people were very understanding and were pleased that their loved one was going to be memorialised at the school.
This letter also shows the difficulties we faced tracing each of the names on the memorial. Many men killed in the war were known by and listed on the war memorial with their middle names. For example 'Brinley' Skinner was in fact Edwin Victor Brinley Skinner. It was through documents like this one that allowed us to narrow down the results and identify the right Noel Roberts.