Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Lt

Army Number : 4863943 and 198192

Unit : 8th Bn

Biography :

Educated at Wyggeston Grammar School, Frank Robson showed real academic promise and the teachers wanted him to stay on to go to university. But he had to leave to start work to earn money to help the family. After being made redundant as an office boy with a yarn agent, he was taken on in the same role with a firm of chartered accountants. There he moved into the audit department and went to night school to study accountancy. He then took on a job as a cost accountant at Rudkin, Laundon Co Ltd – a firm which later became Ladies Pride.
Frank enlisted on 27.6.1940 as Private 4863943. After successfully completing training 167th O.C.T.U at Malvern which began on 4.4.1941, he was commissioned into The Leicestershire Regiment on 26.7.1941. He was in D Coy 8th Bn in East Anglia in Nov 1941. He then served in Egypt in 6th Bn The Green Howards, was captured at Mersa Matruh by the Italians in Jun 1942 and became a POW, initially in Italy and later in Germany. At the camp in Germany Frank kept himself busy by studying for the Chartered Institute of Secretaries exams and by taking up painting in watercolours. He became so proficient in watercolours that he tutored Earl Haig, the son of Field Marshal Haig, who went on to become an accomplished portrait painter. Some of Frank’s own watercolour paintings can be seen in the Imperial War Museum.

Frank was repatriated from Germany on 7.5.1945 and went back to Ladies Pride, working his way to the top. He was awarded the O.B.E. (L.G. 12.6.1982) for his work as Chairman and Managing Director of Ladies Pride plc. At various times he was Chairman of the Leicestershire Scouts, and President of the Hosiery Manufacturers’ Association, the Leicester Textile Society, and the Leicester branch of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. He died in 2017, aged 100 years.

Date of Birth : 4.7.1916

Place of Birth : Market Harborough

Date of Death : 15.1.2017

Place of Death : Leicester

Civil Occupation : Ladies Pride pic. Leicester

Period of Service : 1940-47

Conflicts : WW2

Places Served : England, North Africa; Italy & Germany (as POW)