The latter years - farming and milk delivery - reunions and royal encounters


Having been demobilised in January 1919, Towers returned to his father’s dairy farm at Durton Lane, Broughton. Later, when his father retired, he set up on his own, running a four acre poultry farm and a milk distribution business. As reported in The Lancashire Daily Post on 12 November 1929, Towers attended the Prince of Wales’s V.C. Dinner held in the House of Lords in November 1929 - ‘With me being a bit plump and red-faced he remembered me as I went up with my menu - “Hello, you here again!” he said’: on reaching his local railway station at 5 a.m. the following morning, Towers walked the three miles to his home and was out on the streets of Preston delivering milk by 7.30 a.m.


Towers also attended the Victory Parade and V.C. Dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in June 1946, and returned to London to take part in the Centenary Review of Holders of the Victoria Cross by Her Majesty the Queen in Hyde Park on 25 June 1956. During the 1960s and 1970s he attended a number of V.C. & G.C. Association memorial services and dinners. He died at the Royal Infirmary, Preston in January 1977, aged 79, his last residence having been ‘Mericourt’, Lightfoot Green, Bartle, Preston. He was survived by his wife, Ethel, and his married daughter, Mrs. Marion Castle of Fulwood, Preston. His funeral was attended by Major Ian Ritchie on behalf of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), a regimental wreath accompanying the coffin. Others who attended included Colonel Bob Rainford and representatives of the Preston Council of Ex- Servicemen, and officials from the V.C. & G.C. Association. His ashes were scattered on the January Plot at New Hall Lane Crematorium.


‘James Towers V.C. Close’ was subsequently named in his memory on the Lonsdale Estate in Preston. In more recent years a major thoroughfare in Broughton, opened in 2017, was named for him and on 6 October 2018, the hundred year anniversary of the date of the action which led to the award of his V.C., a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Preston Flag Market.


The Victoria Cross awarded to Towers was one of three won by the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in the Great War and one of a total of 13 such awards to the Regiment for all campaigns and wars. With the exception of Towers’s V.C., all of them are held in regimental museums - the other two Great War issues being held by the Scottish Rifles Museum.


Sold with a quantity of copied research, including birth, marriage and death certificates, and a trench map which includes the Mericourt sector.


www.dnw.co.uk all lots are illustrated on our website and are subject to buyers’ premium at 24% (+VAT where applicable)


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