Shrewsbury poet and children's storyteller dies at 89
A Shrewsbury woman who lived through the London Blitz and later had success as a poet and writing children's stories has died on her 89th birthday.
Peggy Medlicott was the widow of former paratrooper Glynne Medlicott and attended the ceremony when he was personally awarded France’s top military honour, the Legion d’Honneur, during a state visit to Britain by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in 2010.
Although they moved to Shrewsbury in 1990, she hailed from Wimbledon and during the Blitz she and her mother would take shelter in South Wimbledon underground station, or in an Anderson shelter in their garden.
She married Glynne, from Church Stretton, on December 29, 1951.
Son Nick said: "They later moved to north London and bought their own butcher shop in Brondesbury Park. When Glynne ventured into other supplementary employment Peggy would run the shop on her own.
"A very small article was included in the Weekend magazine in either the late 1970s or early 1980s about my mum being a butcher, as it was unusual for a female to be so.
"While working in the shop, running the home and bringing up two sons, Peggy began to write poetry and then short children's stories which were published by D C Thomson in their Twinkle comic. Peggy's stories were printed in this and other comics from 1978 to 2001.
"She attended the ceremony with Glynne when he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur on June 18, 2010.
"Mum passed away at Severn Hospice in Bicton."
Husband of 66 years Glynne, who died in February last year, was part of an elite group of paratroopers who spearheaded the airborne invasion of southern France in August 1944.
