An 18-year-old soldier who was sadly gunned down and killed in the Northern Ireland troubles has been honoured - 53 years later.

Every year, a special service is held in the Wheelock graveyard at Christ Church on Crewe Road where Signaller Paul Genge is buried and this year veterans and friends gathered once once more to pay their respects.

They included former signaller Robert Davis (71) from Church Lawton near Alsager who trained with Paul and his twin brother Robert at the Army Apprentice's College in Harrogate.

Signalman Paul Genge. (Photo: Army Apprentices College, Harrogate.)

"It's so sad," said Robert. "I remember Paul well. We all started out on the same army training course. He was a radio man, an excellent sportsman and soldier."

Those present at the service on 7th November 2024 - 53 years to the day he died, included Cheshire East district councillor, Nicola Cook, and Robert Davis' wife, Connie,.

Mrs Davis read out a poem in the soldier's memory before wooden crosses were laid at his graveside. Paul Genge is remembered on the Royal Signals Museum's website here

It says: "At 5.00pm on 7 November 1971, while walking out off-duty in Lurgan, Signalman Paul Genge and Signalman David Grant were approached by two gunmen in a car on the Tandragee Road near the town's hospital only several hundred yards from the factory.

"Seeing the gunmen, who were armed with a Luger pistol and a Thompson sub-machine gun, the signalmen ran but were unable to escape—Signalman Genge was shot and killed and Signalman Grant was wounded in the thigh."

Do you or your family have any memories of Paul Genge who is buried in the graveyard with his father, Ernest Anthony Genge who died in 1996?

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