Revd Desmond George Brittain (1890-1943) was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire. He studied at Fitzwilliam Hall, Cambridge, and was a teacher before ordination to the priesthood in 1933. After a brief curacy at Wenhaston and Thorington he was appointed curate at St John’s in 1933, becoming Vicar on the death of Canon Adams in 1937. He resigned in 1942 under what may have been less than amicable circumstances, spending the last two years of his life as an assistant master at Epsom College in Surrey. He was outspoken on aspects of the War, including Britain’s alliance with the Soviet Union, provoking comment in the local press. He married Martha Anderson in 1921 and they had a son Desmond and a daughter Margaret (known as Teresa or Terry). He suffered shell-shock in the First War, the effects of which remained with him until his death at the age of 53.