By Mike Dewey, guest Nostalgia writer
Inset: Captain Edward C Kennedy Eighty one years ago, during the Second World War, the Slough area lost one of its most distinguished local residents when Captain Edward C Kennedy, R.N. died a hero on November 23, 1939. He was the Captain of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, which went down “with all guns blazing and colours flying until the last” while patrolling north of the Faroe Islands. This was to enforce the naval blockade which the Royal Navy were imposing on Nazi Germany. The Rawalpindi, then a P&O vessel, had been requisitioned in August 1939 and converted into an armed merchant cruiser by the addition of eight 6 inch and two 3 inch somewhat elderly guns.