Melton war hero Jim passes away aged 101
Jim Posnett lived a remarkable life by any standards, surviving ferocious fighting with the Japanese during the Second World War and going on to enjoy a high profile career in dog showing with his beloved wife, Doreen.
He continued to live independently at his Melton home following Doreen’s death and earlier this year contributed to the nation’s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of VJ Day by being recorded talking about his own wartime memories as one of the last surviving Chindits.
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Jim’s daughter, Amanda, told the Melton Times: “Dad was an incredible, incredible man who lived an amazing life.
“He didn’t have an arthritic bone in his body, he still retained his own hair and his mind remained as sharp as a button.”
He was actually named Gerald, when he was born into a Frisby farming family of eight children in 1919 at the height of the devastating Spanish flu pandemic, a year after the end of the Great War.
Jim, as he came to be known through most of his long life, attended the village primary school but would sometimes be kept at home working in the fields with his siblings.
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Amanda (56) said: “The schoolmaster would often come down to the farm asking why the children weren’t in school and grandma would tell him ‘I can teach them more in these fields in a day than you can in school in a month’.”
After war broke out in 1939, Jim was called up to work on building defences on the east coast before then being sent on a secret mission which saw him sail out to the Far East. He served with the Leicestershire Regiment in India, Java and Burma.
Jim became part of The Chindits, a new under-cover long-range penetration unit designed to disrupt the Japanese.
They were flown silently into the jungle on a fleet of gliders after being warned by their superiors that the dangerous operation meant they were effectively ‘dead men walking’.
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He never spoke openly about everything he experienced there except to ominously say the Japanese were expert users of bayonets and swords.
Jim met Doreen back in England at the end of the war while both were serving with the military police and they were married 72 years until she died in October last year aged 92.
She became a champion dog breeder and shower at Crufts and both of them also worked as judges at the world-renowned show.
The couple also had a son, Gareth (65), and their other son, Anthony, passed away eight years ago.
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After leaving the forces, Jim went on to work at Holwell Works and latterly at Pedigree Petfoods, where he worked from the 1950s until retirement in 1983.
Amanda said: “Dad worked on the fish bay at Petfoods when it was then called Chappies and before they changed the company name.
“The fresh fish would come in from the docks at Grimsby in those days.
“He was offered early retirement when it was all made computerised but he decided to stay on working there for a few more years.”
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Jim, who also had grandchildren and a great-grandchild, filmed lots of video messages during lockdown for the Virtual Pub Facebook page, where he talked about his memories of Melton and the old days and which sparked thousands of appreciative online comments.
Amanda said she was ‘overwhelmed’ by the number of cards and sympathy messages she’s received since her father passed on.
Jim’s daughter-in-law, Melton borough councillor and county council chair, Pam Posnett, described him as ‘a man of the people who led a remarkable life’.
He never talked much about his wartime experiences until Pam and late husband, Anthony, Jim’s son, took him on trips in the early 1990s to Singapore and Burma, where he had served in the conflict.
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“It brought back memories and he was very quiet in Singapore,” Pam recalled.
“He was very emotional going back to Burma, especially when we visited a military cemetery and he recognised the names of some of his old comrades.
“He was very pleased to go back though.
“Being asked to raise the flag at Leicestershire Armed Forces Day last year was also a big honour for him, he said it was the best day of his life.”
Jim had a quick answer whenever anyone asked him the secret of living healthily to the age of 100 - a table spoon of cod liver oil and a glass of whiskey every day was his response.
Friends and villagers are planning to line the streets of Frisby before Jim’s funeral, which is on Christmas Eve, at 10.15am, at Frisby Methodist Church, followed by cremation at Loughborough.