Charles Neville served with the British Royal Engineers during World War Two. In earlier days he grew up in southern England, near Kent, where he attended the prestigious Cranbrook School. He studied languages, and Charles recalls that his parents a life in the diplomatic corps, but even as a young boy engineering proved to be a powerful lure. In school studying engineering, Charles saw the inevitability of being called up, so he joined up and began his training. He was selected to head to the Far East, and he and his classmates boarded a convoy, bound for the Mediterranean and India. Charles joined up with Indian engineers and saw duty in eastern India, near Burma and the Japanese. He and his men worked in the jungles, building roads and bridges, and fending off disease and occasionally the Japanese troops. With the end of the war, Charles returned to England, but finding a crowded nation with limited opportunities, he chose to emigrate, making his way to Canada and falling into the rhythm of civilian life in booming postwar Toronto
We met Charles in the Sunnybrook Veterans’ Wing in December 2017, when he was interviewed by a delegation of Crestwood students over the December Break.
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