Kenneth Povey was born in 1925 in Whitley Superior, the eldest son and first child of Ernest and Evelyn Povey (nee Harrison). The father was from Stretton and the mother from Hatton. Kenneth had a brother who was six years younger than him and another brother who was born during the first few months of World War Two.
The 1939 Register recorded the Povey family as living on Hatton Lane in Hatton. Ernest was working as a sand pit labourer and Kenneth had left school and was seeking his first job
Kenneth joined the RAF at Padgate near Warrington on 11th October 1943 as an Air Training Corps Cadet. He was supposed to train as a wireless operator/gunner, but he had high blood pressure and was therefore not permitted to fly. Instead he trained as a dispatch rider, serving in France after D-Day, forwarding messages about the Allied advance into Germany. Then he travelled by troop ship to the Far East, via the Suez Canal, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), Medan in Sumatra and Singapore to guard Japanese prisoners of war. He was not on the electoral roll in May 1945 at his parents’ house in Hatton, as he was still on war service, not being released until 10th July 1947.
In late 1949 Kenneth married Kathleen Elsie Mallinson of Lancaster and they eventually had two sons. Kenneth worked for a grocer in Carnforth and then set up his own mobile grocery business. Subsequently he had a shop which he later sold, and the family moved to Lancaster. Then he worked for the “Morecambe Advertiser”, selling advertising to be placed in the newspaper.
Kenneth’s father passed away in 1973 and his mother in 2001.
Kenneth Povey died in July 2012 in Lancaster, three years before his wife. He was 86 years of age.