D-day hero Ronald Pritchard dies

A war veteran who took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy and repaired army tanks on the battlefield has died, aged 87.

He later became a garage business owner.

Ronald Pritchard carried his tools on a motorbike and was responsible for keeping the 49th Reconnaissance Division's troops on the road during some of the biggest clashes in the Second World War.

Suffolk-born Mr Pritchard met his first wife Gerada near Nijmegen in Holland, where he stayed for a while after the bridge at Arnhem was destroyed in the failed Allied operation Market Garden in 1944.

After moving back to England and leaving the army he worked as an electrician on the railways and later fitted out new stores for Woolworths. In 1959, Mr Pritchard bought a petrol station and repair garage in Wordsley — Pritchards Garages.

In the following years, he expanded the business by adding two further filling stations in Amblecote and Kingswinford, also selling cars. But he was forced to close them after falling on hard times during the 1974 recession. He ran the remaining garage in Wordsley, with the help of his family, for 50 years until his health deteriorated in May this year.

Mr Pritchard, of Meadowfields Close, Wordsley, who died on September 18, leaves second wife Janet, three sons Mark, aged 55, Simon, 53, and James, 45, a daughter Jill, 50, and eight grandchildren.

His son Simon, who works at the family business in Brierley Hill Road, said his father would be "dearly missed". "My father was very well-known in the area because of the garage business. He liked nothing more than to tell a joke to customers, spend time in his garden and enjoy a game of bridge once a week," he said.

Mr Pritchard's funeral will be held at noon on October 1, at Gornal Wood Crematorium. Simon said he his father was very modest about the role he played in the landings. "Like many soldiers who were there, he didn't like to talk about what happened. But we were all very proud of him," he said.