大象传媒

My father Gordon Beddows served in the Royal Navy during World War 2 aboard an armed merchant cruiser HMS Canton. He told me that he spent most of the war 'pratting about in the Indian Ocean' enjoying the delights of Durban and Bombay. He was lucky as he could have been posted to a much more dangerous theatre of operations. Of his school class in Walsall, West MiIdlands, only a handful survived the war.

It has always been one my father's wishes, before its too late, to visit the grave of one of his childhood friends who was killed in Normandy in July 1944 shortly after D-Day whilst serving in the army with the South Staffordshire Regiment.

I managed to find out where the grave was located through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's web site and then obtained funding from the Heroes Return Big Lottery Fund to visit the War Cemetery in Cambes-en-Plaine near Caen in Normandy.

My father is in his eighties and I am really pleased that we were able to make the trip this April. I have always felt a link to the second world war because my father served in it and because of my interest in history.

The Cemetery in Cambes-en-Plaine is immaculately maintained but relatively small with only 224 graves. My father spoke to me a bit more about his war time experiences during our trip to France and I was amazed to discover that my great uncle served on HMS New Zealand at the Battle of Jutland but perhaps the thing that struck me the most was how how mich a part luck plays in our lives. My dad survived the war and I am here and have a beautiful family of my own. Things could have been very different. He told me of one practice in the Navy called 'divisions' where personnel were mustered and then those on the left were told they were joining the army (presumably to train for D-Day) and those in the right were to stay in the Navy.

My father's friend, Private John Patterson, was only 19 when he was killed.

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