Vaughan ‘Pokes’ Stokes

Pat Armstrong’s friend and fellow officer, Vaughan ‘Pokes’ Stokes resigned his commission in the 10th Hussars in 1919, and in the Royal Tank Corps in 1924. He and his wife Marion (‘Bunty’) divided their time between Tenby in South Wales and 26 Egerton Gardens, London, where their two daughters, Valerie Marion and Pamela Hilda were born in 1917 and 1918, respectively. The couple also travelled extensively, touring South America in 1928 and visiting the Virgin Islands (US) in 1939. Soon after their return from the latter journey, Pokes and Bunty’s marriage collapsed, and the couple divorced. Pokes moved his London address to 4 Sussex Mansions, and in September 1942 married Irish Dorothy Strong. They remained together until Pokes’s death on 28 July 1955 at the age of 64.

Marion also remarried, in 1945. Her husband, Albert Napier Williamson-Napier (b. 1894) was a career diplomat who before his marriage had served as Vice-Consul in various postings in North Africa and the Middle East. In February 1929, he met Rudyard Kipling and his wife when the couple visited Port Said. Williamson-Napier served as Consul-General of Zurich 1947-1949 and of Istanbul in 1949-1952. Following her husband’s death in 1969, Marion settled in Berkshire where she died in 1984.