Eric Richardson
Lieutenant
HMS Patroclus, Royal Navy
Died
3rd November 1940 Aged 46
Commemorated
on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Hampshire
Additional information
Son of Joseph Handford Richardson and Emily Sophia Richardson; husband of Doris Richardson, of Derby.
Josephine Gately a friend of Eric Richardson wrote the following poem at the age of eight.
Eric was present at Dunkirk and was clearly traumatised by his experience.
Captain Richardson does not sleep at night
In the warm summer days he dozes in his deck chair
Under the newspaper
He calls his daughter
"take a pudding basin and buy some Walls ice cream"
Off she goes, up Sandy Lane, through Hierons wood
Down the fields to the shop, hurries back
He doles out the ice cream, watching as she eats it
Putting aside for a moment visions of young men
struggling and dying in a burning sea