Anthony William 'Tony' Yeoman-Clark (25 Apr 1935 - 21 Jun 2025)

In loving memory of Anthony William 'Tony' Yeoman-Clark who sadly passed away on 21st June 2025 Aged 90.
Beloved husband, father and brother.

Tony was born in 1935 in a farmhouse in Sheering where his grandparents lived. He
moved shortly after to No.1 Thremhall Priory Cottages, Start Hill where he became the oldest of 5 boys. 

As a young lad the first job of the day was to empty the outside loo into a trench in the garden, and they grew lovely veg as a result! He bred rabbits and kept bees, and was in the church choir. He would collect acorns at a penny a bucket for the pigs on the farm opposite. Together with his brother John they would play over Hatfield Forest, and they made a cart with some old pram wheels that they pushed up and down the road - now busy A1256. The railway line ran along the bottom of their garden and once they were chased onto the Forest by the driver who stopped his train as they had placed pennies on the rails see if it would derail!

On leaving school he took an apprenticeship at a local garage but the money wasn’t great so after a while he left and worked on the Farm, helping with the harvest. However when his new boss forgot to put in his exemption papers he was called up within a week for military service. In order to choose a career in the Military Police he signed up for a period of 21 years with the option to come out after 3, and was dispatched to Woking for his military training. He took extra classes to improve his maths and English, and took his driving test one icy morning in an army truck after having only driven a tractor before. 

Tony found a talent for marksmanship and had been asked to compete. However this didn’t materialise as he spent the bulk of the three years as a Lance Corporal running the transport section on the island of Cyprus, after discovering that he had ‘volunteered’ to keep the peace during the Cyprus Troubles of the 1950s. Here he had some lucky escapes. An IED aimed at his LandRover patrol took out part of the ear of his translator passenger but left him unscathed. EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) terrorists also discovered that he took a truckload of men to the beach for a swim on their day off, and planted a bomb there. Being a non-swimmer himself he sat where the bomb had been planted but due to a failure in timing it didn’t explode until they’d left to return to camp!

After three years he was offered promotion to Sergeant and a posting to Singapore but decided to return to life on the farm. As a young man he then married Janet and moved into No.4, a couple of doors down from mum and dad, and his younger brothers. This is where his daughter Caroline, and son Mark, were born. After work he would spend his days in his huge garden growing vegetables, always making time to take his daughter to her much loved dancing lessons. Later he could be found providing TLC to Mark’s long line of old cars. Tony was active in the local British legion, acting as treasurer for many years and also as deputy Chair, and at weekends he would often drive his brother-in-law around to local events so that Ron could entertain the elderly by playing his organ. 

He then met Angela and moved to Braintree in 1997, where they married in 2003. After 50 years farming he retired to become a house husband for a few years and became a good cook. They then spent many years caring for Angela’s family members, always without complaint from Tony.

However they continued with his hobby of Caravanning right up until his 90th year. He remained very fit and active, never having been in hospital until he was almost 80. He continued with his gardening and DIY, resolutely climbing ladders against all advice(!), and going for very long walks.