Denis Ruck and Rhoda Janet Ruck nee King
Denis Ruck was born on 1 February 1917, the son of Walter Edmund Ruck and his wife Ethel Nellie nee Marsden.
His father was a butcher at Church Road Bubbenhall, and by the time of the 1939 register when Denis was only 22, he was describing himself as "master butcher", obviously following in his father's footsteps. His younger brother Stanley also became a butcher.
When war broke out Denis joined the 8th Battalion Midland Counties Parachute Regiment. (The regimental badge features on his gravestone.) Whilst on compassionate leave in 1941 (his father was ill) he married Rhoda Janet King on 2 April at Stoneleigh Church.
He returned to the forces and Rhoda, a shorthand typist at the Daimler, lived with her mother at Rose Cottage in Stoneleigh until his return.
After the war they moved to Bubbenhall and continued the butchers business there. They had two children before moving in later life to Stratford.
The couple were keen tennis players - in fact, that was how they met, at Stoneleigh Tennis Club - and Rhoda became an active member of Stoneleigh WI.
Denis died on 27 August 1996 at the age of 79, and was buried on 4 September.
Rhoda Janet King was the daughter of Ernest Robert King and his wife Annie May nee Adams. Very many more members of the King family are buried at Stoneleigh. She was born on 18 August 1920 and baptised at Stoneleigh on 26 September. When she died on 30 November 1999 she was the mother of two children and grandmother of four.