in
Boreham Wood, Hertfordshire, and it was there that Kirby Laing
gave the name to the Thermalite block, a lightweight building brick
developed from pulverised fuel ash which was and remains immensely
successful in its field. I can only imagine that it was because of
John Laing's connection with South Africa that my father spoke so
highly of the spacial ability of the Zulus and their expertise in the
rapidity of Bailey Bridge construction, which the Royal Engineers were
tasked with during WWII and it was Kirby Laing who succeeded in
convincing his father to release him to serve in the Royal Engineers
during the last two years of the war. Following the consequences of the
explosion of a land-mine in North Africa, whilst serving as a Royal
Engineer in the Eigth Army, my father spent 6 months in a Hospital
in Alexandia, Egypt, before then becoming involved with the allied
push across the German defensive Gustav line towards Rome, after
a landing in Italy directly from North Africa, by way of his hands-on
involvement with the building of the Bailey Bridges over which the likes
of Richard Glover's Tank Commander father pushed towards ROME
following the capture of Monte Cassino, whilst my soul-mate Linnie’s
father Ronald Arthur Yardley provided telecommunications support
throughout the push to Rome and thence the North, until the German
surrender.
…