Peter Ben Sayce’s name is recorded with those living in the parish who served in WW2
He was born in 1915, in Didsbury, Manchester, to Dilys, nee Evans, and George, a cotton manufacturer. Before he was a year old, his father, who was serving as a temporary Captain in the Manchester Regiment, was killed in action while fighting on the Somme.
In 1921, Dilys was married again, to Kenneth Tester Kirkby, a timber merchant, and they came to live in Daresbury, around 1930. Peter seems to have been working with his step-father before the outbreak of the war, because his occupation is recorded as ‘lumber man’ on the ship’s passenger list when he returned to England from Nova Scotia, in 1937.
In 1940 he was married to Barbara Pidduck, and their two sons were baptised at Daresbury.
During the war, he served as an officer in the Territorial Army with the Royal Artillery, in India, and when he was discharged at the end of the war in 1945, he had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Among the service medals he was awarded was the Burma Star.
The family lived at the Old Laundry, Belmont Hall, near Northwich, and in civilian life Peter Sayce became a businessman, manufacturing packaging, as Peter Sayce Associates, at a factory in Astmoor in Runcorn. The company later re-located to a larger site at Tattenhall near Chester. He was very much involved in the Cheshire hunting set, serving as secretary to the Cheshire Polo Club and also to the Cheshire Hunt.
Peter was still living in Cheshire, though not locally, when he died in 1999.
