Alan George Griffin, 1941-2025

Sadly, we have to announce that Alan Griffin, long-term member and founder of the Leamington History Group, has died.

Margaret Rushton has kindly written this summary of his life.

Alan grew up in Southam, one of three sons of a baker who lived at Southam Windmill. He passed the 11+ and attended Leamington College until the age of 16, when like most of his contemporaries at that time, having completed ‘O’ levels, he left to start work. He was apprenticed to an engineer in Leamington, but before long was ‘moonlighting’ at weekends as a sports journalist and photographer, riding pillion on a friend’s motorbike from match to match to catch the latest scores before phoning them in for publication in the local version of ‘The Pink’.

Photography was always his passion, but he also dedicated 28 years of his life to the Fire Service, publishing numerous articles and a book, “Fetch the Engines”, – a history of the Southam Fire Brigades.

In “retirement”, Alan held numerous short-term contract posts, – as an Archives Assistant at the County Record Office, as a Court Usher, and at the Security Department at Warwick Castle. He was a volunteer at St Mary’s Church, Warwick, and for many years caught a Saturday morning train to London, to spend the day as a volunteer guide at St Paul’s Cathedral. He worked at the Pump Rooms in 1999, and enjoyed some years as Father Christmas at Burgis and Colbourne on the Parade. For a time, he was verger at All Saints in Leamington, which led to his rescuing pictures and other ephemera, writing leaflets for visitors and unearthing the stories of some of the inhabitants of the churchyard and the crypt, – no longer accessible to the public, as a result of very many years’ damp, and the extensive damage from floodwater in 1998.  From 2001-2016  Alan was also Mace Bearer to Leamington Town Council, which prompted him to research the mayoral regalia and other items of interest associated with the building.

If that were not enough, he was also passionately involved in local history, at Walton, at Southam and Leamington. He helped found the Southam Local History Society and the Leamington History Group, contributing talks, slide shows and numerous publications. I can safely say that the Leamington History Group would not have come into being without Alan’s commitment to saving, archiving and sharing all that had been discovered as part of the History at Bath Place Project.

A particular topic which held deep resonance for Alan was the daring exploit of SAS-trained Czech soldiers who were billeted locally from 1940-1942 and who parachuted into history to assassinate one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, Reynard Heydrich, with dreadful repercussions for all those involved and who lived close by. Alan tracked down and interviewed a number of the Czech Brigade who had settled in UK, using their testimony and photographs to produce a book which is now out of print, but still very much sought-after. He was honoured by both the Czech and Slovak Governments for his tribute and, until ill-health prevented him, attended every annual commemoration ceremony at the Memorial Fountain in Jephson Gardens. The Memorial stands as a tribute to the parachutists, and now also to Alan, who with his customary energy and attention to detail, set up a Friends Association to help fund its restoration, after years of Leamington’s legendary “hard” water had damaged it almost beyond repair.

We are pleased to publish a list of the books that he wrote and to list the 55 articles on this website which he researched and published, so that the scope of his scholarship and talent can be seen by all. 

BOOKS –

This Noble Duty.  A History of Firefighting in Warwickshire. 1989

Old Southam in Photographs. 1995

Around Southam in Old Photographs. 1999

Leamington’s Czech Patriots and the Heydrich Assassination. 2004

Leamington Lives Remembered.2012

In Memoriam. A History Trail in Leamington Cemetery. 2014

Leamington’s Czech Patriots. The Story of the Fountain in Jephson Gardens. 2018

Fetch the Engine.  A Celebration of Two Centuries of the Southam Fire Brigade. 2019

Lest We Forget: The Southam Men in the Great War. (undated)

Days Gone By.  An Album of Old Photographs compiled by Alan Griffin. (undated)

Wartime Southam 1939-1945.  A Scrapbook of the War Years. (undated)

Walton Explored: Its History and Wildlife, with Marjorie Griffin

And the WEBPAGES (Click to View) –