Their Story

Directly after leaving school, Ronnie Gordon volunteered for the Royal Armoured Corps and after Bovington and Sandhurst eventually joined the 23^rd Hussars as a Lieutenant in January 1943. Ronnie was seconded to be protection troop leader for the Brigadier of 29^th Armoured Brigade when he took part in Operation Goodwood after the Battle for Caen. Goodwood was a massive attack designed to break-out of the bridgehead following the invasion of northern France on D-Day. On 19 July 1944, Ronnie’s tank while stationary was bracketed by a German 88mm gun. Ronnie and his crew, outside the tank at that moment, sheltered underneath it with disastrous results. Ronnie was 20 and injured.

Within about half an hour of being injured, Ronnie was picked up by an Army Red Cross vehicle and taken to a small, tented field hospital where his right leg was amputated above the knee. He was immediately moved to a convalescent tent for a week before being flown back to the UK in a Dakota aircraft.

Once back in the UK, Ronnie was taken to Ronkswood War Emergency Hospital in Worcester where he had another operation to ‘tidy up’ his stump. He stayed at Ronkswood for a couple of months, prior to being despatched home and fitted with a wooden peg leg at Roehampton.  Later on he was fitted with a tin leg.

As soon as he was fit enough, Ronnie went back into the Army as the war was still on and was posted to an Armoured Training Regiment in the north of England where he was in charge of the Driving and Maintenance Wing. He was then transferred to a small unit near Consett outside Newcastle where he was charged with looking after around 100 men who were waiting to be demobilised. After only a few months there, Ronnie himself was demobilised – he was given a couple of hundred pounds in cash and a grey ‘demob’ suit as was customary after WWII.

Unsure what to do with myself, my father got me a job with his chartered accountants in the City of London as an audit clerk to give me an idea of the City and commerce. I worked there for a year but it nearly killed me. I felt my wings had been clipped.

During this time, Ronnie did a course designed for demobilised people in “general commercial stuff – economics, book-keeping, commercial law, etc.” and evening classes in business studies which helped him get work at merchanting houses in London exporting goods abroad.

Three years after his injury, Ronnie found a job he enjoyed with Temple Press, a trade and technical magazine publisher based at the top of Farringdon Road in London. Starting off as an advertisement representative on Farm Mechanisation, he rose through the ranks to become manager of the Motor and Commercial Motor magazines. The company was subject to a series of take-overs and Ronnie left around 1980 to start his own press and PR firm that specialised in road transport.

Throughout his working life Ronnie stayed active, taking part in a number of sports both for leisure and to compete. While at school, Ronnie was keen on rugger (rugby) and was an enthusiastic table tennis player competing in the South England Championship, subsequently finding that he was able to play perfectly well with a prosthetic leg.

As a motor enthusiast, Ronnie raced twice at Goodwood and once at Silverstone in 1956 in an adapted Austin Healey. Reselco, a specialist firm in Hammersmith, fitted the car with a hand-operated clutch. Subsequently, Ronnie also took part as a navigator in a couple of European rallies and was on a committee for the RAC.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s Ronnie got into sailing and competed in the ‘Icicle Series’ winter dinghy racing at a nearby reservoir. From there, he developed into off-shore sailing and had a 30ft racing yacht built in Ireland which (with a crew) he sailed back across the Irish Sea in a gale. He raced regularly in the Solent together with cruising the west coast of Scotland, only giving it up with age.

Post-injury, I have always enjoyed competing against able-bodied people. I just want to be thought as normal – one of the chaps!

Ronnie came to be associated with Blesma in 2007 and ever since, has been strong advocate of the Association. Ronnie has taken his family skiing for many years and in 2011 did a double run with his son down the Austrian Olympic bobsled course. When his friends who run the Alpbach Visitors’ Ski Club near Innsbruck, Austria wished to help a worthwhile cause, Ronnie introduced them to Blesma. The AVSC generously donated an award for the Most Improved Skier on Blesma’s annual ski-biking trip along with a top-of-the-range ski bike for Members to use while on the trip.

Ronnie has been married to Tanya, who has always been very supportive, for 53 years and they have four grown-up children.

Today, Ronnie is still socially active and enjoys spending time in his garden and seeing his family. He is an ardent believer in fitness and that keeping active, mentally and physically, is very important to your well-being.