Sergeant Phil Pain 1899 - 1968

Phil Pain c. 1914, as a Signaller in the 7^th Royal Sussex Regt

Phil Pain was born on 29^th April 1889 at 48 St.Georges Road, Regents Park, St.Pancras, London. The only child of the marriage of Charles Knight Pain, and Harriet Sawyer. Phil was apprenticed for 4 years as a Midshipman on 16^th October 1906, with the Balls & Stansfield Shipping Company on the Tyne. He then served on the Collier SS Woodville, operating out of Hebburn-on-the Tyne and Middlesborough, to the Mediterranean.  He subsequently attended the South Shields Maritime School, Navigation & Nautical Astronomy Department in October 1910. He married Sarah Isabella Divine of Hebburn, County Durham, in 1912.  Sarah had lost two brothers, drowned at sea, so Phil may have been persuaded to give up the sea, and he re-trained as an Electrician. They had three children, Ellen (1913); Eric (1916); and Betty (1920).

In WW1 he enlisted 9^th December 1915, serving with the Army Service Corps; the 104 Training Res. Bn.; and with the 7^th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment as a Signaller, operating close to the front lines.  Sarah always maintained that his asthma was caused by Gas attacks.  Phil recalled scavenging for eggs one day with a friend.  As they came over a hill a passing shell decapitated his friend.  He also recalled repairing ‘his’ telegraph wires, by dismantling those of other units. He was certainly in the Cambrai, and Arras regions at the time of the major battles in 1917-18.  One story that he told to his grandson Michael Emens, was of the decimation of his Company in the trenches, resulting in a bizarre situation where out of the 26 survivors, 23 had names beginning with the letter “P”.  He was transferred to reserve 8^th February 1919.

 After WW1 he was a long-time Cinema Manager and Projectionist, latterly in the Raby Cinema, Newcastle.  The company that ran this, and other cinemas, was Messrs Windle & Marshall of Whitley Bay.

 In WW2 he joined the 11^th Battalion, Newcastle West, Home Guard, and as a Sergeant he was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM Military Division) in 1947, for services in designing and building Home Guard training aids.  This medal was unfortunately stolen in a burglary in the 1960s. He was also active in the Freemasons, in the Freemasons Hall at the bottom of Westgate Hill, Newcastle. He died following long ill-health on 16 September 1968, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Two letters congratulating Sergeant Phil Pain on the award of the B.E.M., one from Buckingham Palace and the other from Major J.G.H. Dixon 11th Home Guard.