BRIDPORT war veteran Charles Everidge has died just before his 98th birthday.

Mr Everidge was a well-known, much-loved and well respected figure in West Dorset.

His packed funeral took place at St Swithun’s Church last Wednesday.

He was born in May 1917 in Camberwell and from 1936 attended Jesus College, Cambridge gaining an MA in agriculture. On the outbreak of war he was attached to the Royal Artillery with responsibility for the guns defending Exeter Airport.

He featured often in the Bridport News and in one interview said it was his love of horses that made him enlist.

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

OLD COMRADES: Charles Everidge and the late Ron Brent pcitured in 2009 

In 2009, when he was marking the marking the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War with his good friend the late Ron Brent, said he’d signed up to the Territorial Army because he knew field guns were pulled by horses.

He said: “Soon after, they got rid of my horse and got mechanised and I found myself in the Royal Artillery getting trained in a light ack-ack regiment in Exeter.”

There he remembered his Welsh sergeant’s absolute refusal to bow to pressure from the top brass to keep shells, oil and guns in neat and orderly rows.

“Old Taffy Williams wouldn’t do it.

“He never did his collar up, he was always rough, half-shaved but he looked after his troops.

“He kept his gun camouflaged among the packing cases. He annoyed the brigadiers immensely.

“But after three or four months with nothing happening, the Germans came.

“They didn’t see Taffy’s gun and we were able to shoot down a Luftwaffe plane in spite of the brigadiers.”

In 1942, they sent him to India attached to the 17,000-strong, 17th Indian division and later he was in the Burma campaign and is one of the few remaining members of the Burma Star Association.

His friend Freddie Carpenter said then: “What he is too modest to say is that in the context of the time, it was people like Charles who helped turn the tide against the Japanese.”

Mr Everidge was mainly involved in logistics, securing supplies to troops on the ground. Prior to leaving England, he arranged for the Army and Navy stores to deliver a regular supply of gin and cigars to wherever he was to be stationed. He entered Burma towards the end of the three-year-long campaign, following the tanks and celebrating the end of the war there in 1945.

Both he and Mr Brent both married Bridport women working at Port Bredy Hospital, Mr Everidge in 1948.

He completed his agriculture training in Hereford moving to Roadstead Farm, Chideock in 1952.

Raising six children Charles continued as an active member of the West Dorset farming community while owning the Alberlon Caravan and Camping site.

He enjoyed showing Guernsey cows was vice president of the Melplash Show, contributing in 2014 to the selection and purchase of the Melplash Show Flag.

He was also president of the West Dorset Conservative Club, competing in the local snooker league.

He retired to Bridport in 1987 growing too many vegetables and flowers so that he could bag them up for family and friends.

The women receiving sweet peas annually were members of the Hanover Bridge Club where Mr Everidge played until the age of 97 often scoring in the top three.

He became a founder member of the Bridport branch of the Burma Star Association in 1987, twice president in 1989-93 and 2009-2015.

Chris Everidge said: “Throughout his life Charles was a community man enjoying life to the full with a sense of humour, sharing it with all around him. Never a word spoken in anger Charles was a true example of how to live life to a healthy old age.”

And as his fellow Royal British Legion member friend Freddie Carpenter said in 2009: “They (Mr Everidge and Mr Brent) both represent a generation the rest of us should be immensely proud of.

“Though you’ll never hear them boasting about what they did.

“I call them a couple of overgrown schoolboys, they are always deprecating all the things they did.

“They are incapable of being serious.”