SAMUEL Lewis Edwards had a tough start to life - abandoned by his mother, orphaned at eight and maimed while serving his country in World War Two. He was read the last rites three times after that fateful day in Normandy, but he clung on and returned to East Lancashire to live a long and successful life. He died last week aged 83. Reporter IAN SINGLETON looks at his amazing triumph over adversity. . .

NOBODY thought Sam would recover. It was June 24, 1944, in Caen, Normandy. Sam had just been called into active service to replace those who died on D-Day weeks earlier.

A German shell hit his trench and blew away his right leg. The other leg was barely attached. In the middle of his back was a hole you could fit a fist into.

Fellow soldiers dug him out of the rubble and carried him to a Red Cross jeep.

While morphine battled to suppress the agony, Sam was given blood transfusions and his left leg was amputated.

But with Sam's death almost a foregone conclusion, the surgeon did a quick 'patch-up' job, rather than place enough muscle over the bone to create the stump.

Sam's son Vincent, 49, who lives in his father's old bungalow in Laburnum Road, Blackburn, said the fact he lived to the age of 83 was nothing short of miraculous. He said: "Initially, they gave him 24 hours to live.

"Then he got gangrene because they didn't bother trimming his stump up properly because they thought he was a wasted operation.

"They wanted to treat other injured people who they thought they could save.

"He was given the last rites three times at 24 - so to make it to 83 was amazing."

By that point, Sam had already endured more than enough sadness and tragedy for one person.

As a baby, Sam became a innocent victim of social stigma when his mother abandoned him due to the shame of his illegitimacy.

He was put into the care of his grandparents, who both died when he was eight, so he was placed into a children's home in St Helen's and classed as an orphan.

In his late teens, he contacted his mum, who lived in Blackburn, but they never got on. However, while making this attempted reconciliation, Sam met his wife Betty in a street.

The pair married six months before Sam headed to Normandy. When his call-up papers came, Sam was a reservist, spraying battleships and tanks in a factory in London.

He told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in 1984: "I went to the boss and he said: 'You don't have to go -- it's entirely up to you'. And I said that most of my mates had gone in the forces, so I might as well.

"But I don't regret going -- after all, I could have got killed in London during the bombing."

The Rev Charles Hoole was chaplain of the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association (BLESMA) home in Blackpool, where Sam, his friend of 50 years, spent the last decade.

He said: "All the people I have met in BLESMA who lost their legs, arms and eyes still feel lucky as a lot of people died out there.

"Sam was a brilliant chap. He lived life to the full. He had a real appetite for life.

"They don't make them like Sam any more because he proved he could overcome any sort of adversity. He proved that by living his life."

Sam received a big boost when his daughter Ann, now 57, was born, as he did not think he would be able to father a child. Around that time, he felt well enough to take a job and worked at Remploy in Blackburn making furniture.

Some 14 years later, he needed another operation to repair the 'patch-up' job of the surgeon. The bone had started to jut out of his stump and needed shaving down.

Sam was forced to give up the job at Remploy, but, undeterred, went on a commercial course through the labour exchange. This led to a job at the Halifax Building Society in the mortgage section which he held for 28 years.

He was well-known in Blackburn for waddling about on his tiny metal legs with the aid of two sticks. He was unable to have the usual false limbs as the blast had blown away too much of his legs.

Sam even drove a car until his eyesight deteriorated 12 years ago. He also loved going to watch Blackburn Rovers and was a familiar fixture for years at the front of the stadium with other disabled supporters.

His beloved wife died in 1993 and Sam was unable to look after himself and moved to BLESMA.

Vincent, whose wife Ingrid is German, said his father had deteriorated into ill health over the past few years -- a legacy of horrific injuries.

He explained: "He had a prostate problem and an infection. They found scar tissue from the original wound was preventing him passing urine. That would have been there for 50 years. I can remember going to the Rovers in the 1960s and waiting for him for 10 minutes while he was in the toilet after the game.

"Everyone else had gone home and I was waiting. He must have the problem them, but he never mentioned it. That was Dad."