Pub Sign Study The Wilfred Wood Hazel Grove Stockport

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A pub named after a great local hero of the First World War. Wilfred Wood. He was just a twenty-one year old private, fighting in Italy at the battle of Vitorio Veneto on the 3rd of November 1918, just a week before the war ended. Learning that a group of his friends were pinned down by a German machine gun nest he took it out single handedly, on his own initiative, without awaiting orders, and an astonishing 140 Germans surrendered to him. He was awarded the Victoria Cross one of the highest possible gallantry medals there ever was, and he survived the war and returned home to the ovations of the local Mechanics Institute and took up work as a railway engineer, eventually becoming an engine driver. A train was named after him, and when it was eventually broken up the name plate was rescued for posterity. It is now in the possession of his former regiment, The Northumberland Fusiliers. He died peacefully in 1982. A man undoubtedly deserving of a few beers being consumed in his honour. Arthur Chappell