A family at war: The life and times of Frank McLardy, pharmacist.

Abstract

George Francis 'Frank' McLardy (1915-1981) was a pharmacist who lived in Formby in the 1930s. He came from an unremarkable lower middle-class family and enjoyed considerable success at school and later at technical college and pharmacy school. He became a qualified pharmacist just before the war broke. He volunteered for the army and was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. In France, he witnessed the collapse of the allied forces and was quickly captured. He spent the rest of the war in Poland and in Germany. This was the fate of many young men during the war. What makes McLardy's case unique is that, prior to the war, had a very active role in the Liverpool district of the British Union of Fascists and, while a prisoner of war (POW) he offered to work for the Germans against the Russians and visited POW camps recruiting British men for a unit which aimed to go to the eastern front and fight in German uniforms. Moreover, he did all this while still actively using his qualification as a pharmacist.