Obituary: Col Fred Tilston VC

Col Fred Tilston VC, soldier, died Toronto 23 September, aged 86. Awarded the VC in March 1945 for bravery in leading men of the Essex Scottish Regiment in hand- to-hand fighting at the Hochwald, in Germany. After receiving a wound to the head he charged the enemy trenches, silencing a machine-gun with a grenade. He lost both legs and an eye in the fighting that followed. When he joined the regiment in 1941, his examiners had concluded he 'would never make an officer'. In civilian life, worked in pharmaceuticals, and was president of Sterling Drug, in his native Canada, from 1957 to 1970.