Michael Alan Berdoe-Wilkinson was born on 28 April 1945, the elder child of Dermot William Berdoe-Wilkinson (1882-1955) and Vera Berdoe-Wilkinson née Christopherson. His birth was registered in the 2nd quarter of 1915 in the Kensington registration district, London. His sister, Bridget Berdoe-Wilkinson (1918-1991) was born on 30 March 1918, also in Kensington.
He attended Radley College, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, from 1929 to 1933 where according to our Picture Source he was a House Prefect and represented the School at Rackets in 1932. On leaving, after a period of travelling, he joined his father's firm on the Stock Exchange. He was amongst the most loyal and enthusiastic of Old Radleians, throwing his great energy into any project that he thought would advance the cause of Radley.
On 31 January 1934 he embarked aboard the TSS Camito, a passenger carrying banana boat of the Fyffes Line, at Swansea, Wales, bound for Kingston, Jamaica. The ship's manifest shows him as aged 19 years of no occupation and residing at Bear's House, Wentworth, Virginia Water, Surrey.
On the outbreak of war he was commissioned in the Territorial Army. His experience as an A.A. gunner in the early days of the war made him believe that his physical activity would he better employed in some other branch, and he transferred to the infantry.
In the 1939 England and Wales Register he is shown as an assistant stockbroker and a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Queens Royal Regiment, living at Knowle, Cranleigh, Surrey, (in 2023 it had become the Knowle Park Nursing Home), together with his parents, his sister and twenty servants including a cook, two nursing sisters, two kitchen maids, two lady's maids, two housemaids, a footman, two house duties oddmen, two chauffeurs, a kennel maid and a kennel man. His father was described as a stockbroker who on 13 November 1939 was appointed as one of the three Surrey Sheriffs in the Kings Bench Division in the High Court of Justice.
He was serving as a Captain in 1/5th (Territorial) Battalion of the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey), service number 70749, that took part in the Battle of Deir el Munassib, Egypt, on 29 September 1942 and he was reported as Missing, aged 27 years, on 30 September 1942. On 21 August 1943 his body was located and identified by his identity disc and was reburied in Plot 27, Row C, Grave 7, in the El Alamein War Cemetery, El Alamein, Egypt.
Shown as Berdoe-Wilkinson, M.A on the Stock Exchange war memorial, he is also commemorated on a plaque in St Nicholas Church, Church Lane, Cranleigh, GU6 8AS, on the Cranleigh War Memorial at 157 High Street, The Common, Cranleigh, GU6 8BB and on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
