Cyril David Rayment, who was born on 3rd March 1924, was adopted on 21st May 1929 by Herbert Alfred Rayment and his wife Rosa Caroline Rayment née Giffen who had been married nearly ten years without having had any children.

In September 1939 Cyril had left school and was working at the Post Office as a Boy Messenger when war was declared.  In 1941, at the aged of 17, he went to a church hall in Cambridge where he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy but it was not until his 18th birthday on 3rd March 1942 that we was told to report to HMS Ganges, a training ship at Shotley near Ipswich in Suffolk, where he did his training.

When he finished his training at Shotley he was sent to Chatham (because he was a Chatham rating) and from there he went to Dunoon in Scotland where he did an anti-submarine detection course.  Upon his return to Chatham he waited about a week until he was drafted to Londonderry to join his ship, HMS Landgaurd, a 2000 ton ex-American Coastguard Cutter obtained by the Royal Navy under the famous Lease-Lend agreement.

He travelled to Bathurst and Freetown in West Africa aboard HMS Landgaurd, which was running the convoys down there until it was required to take part in Operation Torch, the North African landings in 8th November 1942, after which they went to Gibraltar to rest, before returning to the UK.

Remaining with the Landgaurd, which then started escorting convoys across the North Atlantic between Britain and Newfoundland, he suffered badly from the icy conditions until his ship was allocated to group hunting U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.  On 25th August 1943 his ship was the first in the Royal Navy to be damaged by German radio-controlled glider bombs, parts of which were recovered and taken back to Falmouth by the Landgaurd for examination.

He managed to survive the war and in 1948, at the age of 24, he met 17-year-old Audrey May Jellis whom he married at Royston Parish Church on 26th December 1951.  However, like his adoptive parents, they never had any children.

After his service in the Royal Navy, Cyril spent 27 years working with the computer company ICL and later took part in the documentary titled “Royston – A Town at War” which was made by Exposure Television Ltd. of Hitchin in Hertfordshire.

Cyril, who lived at 18 Mill Road, Royston, was aged 87 when died on 26th August 2011 leaving a widow Audrey but no children.