大象传媒

Introduction

This article is submitted on behalf of the West Cumbria Branch of the Normandy veterans. Several members of this Branch have assisted me over the years with information for my university research about the Battle of Normandy. The Branch has regularly commemorated Normandy Landings and the Anniversary of the Armistice of World War One both in West Cumbria, and in Normandy.

This information was given to me by the Branch Secretary, Mr Jim Jolly, from Cleator Moor, Cumbria, who has signed a form agreeing that I could write about these memories, that it can be donated to an archive so that others can read it. The terms of 鈥淭he People鈥檚 War鈥� website have been read and understood.

Founding the Normandy Veterans Association

鈥淯ntil about the time just after I retired, I never knew anything about the Normandy Veterans Association. I didn鈥檛 even know it existed until I read a little bit in the local weekly newspaper, 鈥楾he Whitehaven News鈥�. It mentioned anybody who was involved in the Normandy campaign between the 5th June and the 20th August 1944 and asked would they be interested in joining a Branch. At that time it was a chap called Joe Bainbridge who started it off. Joe is now deceased, but it was him that started up the Association locally.

The first meeting started in a pub in Whitehaven and to begin with there were only a few members. Then, the Branch started going to the Rugby Club and I thought, 鈥淲ell this sounds interesting.鈥� So that was it, I joined then. Apart from one or two years, for most of that time, I鈥檝e been Branch Secretary.

How I became Secretary was because I think somebody found out I had a typewriter or nobody else would take it! It does involve a bit of work, but I don鈥檛 mind as it keeps you going. The Association locally meets monthly and the Association nation wide has over a hundred Branches. They are mostly in this country but they set up about five or six Branches overseas in places like Belgium and Australia. They vary in size of course, and then a year or so back we gained a few extra members when the Mid-Cumbria Branch joined up with us.

We meet once a month and we have to raise our own funds any way we can. We do this through bingos, raffles or turkey draws. Sometimes, you get donations from big organisations like Sellafield or other local firms. Local authorities have sometimes helped us out. We have to make all the money so that we鈥檝e always got something in the kitty for visiting other districts.

Visits to other districts have tailed off of course. Usually what happened was when a District was formed and acquired its own standard there was always a nice ceremony when the standard was dedicated at a church. Over the years we鈥檝e been to quite a few places in the country when other Districts were formed for their 鈥楽tandard Dedication鈥�. Some of them have been quite large parades.

Remembering Anniversaries of the war

With some of the cash that we have raised we commemorate anniversaries of the war. We have been across the other side of the Channel a few times. For example, we did a visit back to Normandy for the 45th Anniversary of D-Day, the 55th and of course the 60th Anniversary in 2004. Some of the lads from the Branch went on the 50th Anniversary, but I didn鈥檛 go on that particular one. We are involved in a number of activities for the 60th Anniversary of the end of the war on 2005. Those are the sort of things that we do.

We鈥檝e always observed some anniversaries locally as well. One of these is November 11th every year, the Anniversary of the Armistice of World War One. We always observe it as the British Legion are trying to get us all back to commemorating that day, the 11th November when World War One finished. We do this whatever that day falls on, rather than on the Remembrance Sunday and we have a ceremony at our Normandy Veterans plaque in St Nicholas鈥� Church Gardens, Whitehaven.

Of course, we also observe the 6th June every year as well. As you know, that is our own day, as it were, commemorating the first day of the Normandy Landings. Every year on the 6th June, again at our plaque we have a short service. Occasionally, as in 2004, we have held this ceremony a few days later because we have been involved in one of these larger national ceremonies on 6th June.

When we first started our D-Day service some years ago, there were only just a few of us taking part. It was simple and straightforward. Then, it has built up and we now invite the Mayor and councillors and we have a public address system. It鈥檚 developed into quite an event. The public also takes part. Whatever the weather, we have always been there.

Permanent memorials of the war

There was no particular reason why we selected St. Nicholas Gardens for the site of our Normandy Veterans Memorial Plaque. It was unveiled in June 1993. At that time, we seemed to be in touch with Reverend Jim Baker and of course that was his church then. We had to put it somewhere and that seemed like a good location in the centre of Whitehaven. So we had this plaque installed on the wall there. We had a big parade that year. They came from all over the country and there was a big parade around the town that Sunday. We鈥檝e repeated the service every year: at the plaque.

The original plaque is not there now. The original plaque was a metal one and this is now in the Civic Hall at Whitehaven. We had to take it down because it got weathered and so placed it in Whitehaven Civic Hall. The metal plaque was replaced by another one made in stone.

Also in Whitehaven Civic Hall is a 3-D model of the Normandy Landing Beaches done on hardboard, which was presented to us by a member from another area. It was presented to us on the day of that big parade in 1993. I had it framed because it was just plain when we got it. And it鈥檚 now hanging in the Civic Hall for all to see. Also, I put a letter beside the model to tie up with the plaque that has been placed in St. Nicholas鈥� Gardens.

That means anybody seeing that model will see that it鈥檚 Normandy and then the letter tells them if they go to the St Nicholas鈥� Gardens than they will see the plaque. Of course, since the year 2000 there has been a memorial seat there as well. The reason for the Memorial Seat was because we wanted to do something special for the year 2000. We came up with all sorts of ideas, including a stained glass window. In the end we decided on a nice bench seat. It was specially designed and made by a local joiner and the project was to raise enough money from various sources to pay for the seat, which we had installed. The mayor at the time unveiled it and we also had some local schoolchildren down to take part in the service.

Talking about the war

Of course, all of the members in the Branch are getting older. The war is all history now! So, we are trying to involve some of the schoolchildren and we have had them taking part in the ceremonies, placing their poppy crosses in the sand and so on. I鈥檝e also been to the schools and given them a short talk about what the poppies mean and what happened in the war. We like to keep in touch with the children.

It was rather strange I suppose when I first started to talk about the war. For years you have come out of the army and then you raise your family and go through life. It was only because I was interested in the war that I started to read about it and then began to talk a lot about the war. I mean, I suddenly found out, 鈥淲ell, I was in this war, and this was what happened鈥�. So, I started to research it and I really have gone into quite a lot of detail about the war.

If schoolchildren want to know anything about the war now, I know most of the things that happened. I know not only about what happened in my own part of the war, but the whole general plan, the build-up to it, the aftermath, what happened to the Resistance on the other side of the Channel and how it all came about. So, I found the whole subject quite fascinating.

Then I don鈥檛 mind wearing my medals. The Association Headquarters always say, 鈥淲ear your medals at any time!鈥� However, we usually just wear them at official functions such as parades, services or if we go to schools. Our Association encourages us to talk to people about the war, especially schoolchildren, and to wear our medals.

My own father he never used to wear his medals from the First World War. He never bothered at all and he never used to talk about it when we were young. However, when we lived down there, we went once to the Imperial War Museum. So I said to my Dad, 鈥� Well, you know, you don鈥檛 get about much.鈥� He had lost both legs in World War One and he didn鈥檛 get out much unless he went in an invalid carriage. So this day, I phoned the Imperial War Museum and he said he鈥檇 like to go there. The Museum was very good. They got the gates opened up and we went past the two big guns at the front of the museum to the front door. We got my Dad out into a wheelchair and took him round the museum and he was very impressed with what he saw.

However, he looked at the 鈥榤ock-ups鈥� of the trenches and all the paraphernalia round them such as the sandbags, and the guns and everything. Then, he said, 鈥淵es, doesn鈥檛 that look nice and neat and tidy. It鈥檚 nothing like it was of course. If you can imagine all that full of water, full of dead bodies and you walking over them, that鈥檚 more like it. It鈥檚 very clinical when you see it in a museum.鈥�

My Dad also had a brother, John, killed near Arras during World War One. He鈥檚 on the Menin Gate Memorial. That is something else I like to tell the schoolchildren about. They usually don鈥檛 know about the ceremony that goes on at the Menin Gate every night at eight o鈥檆lock. It鈥檚 a thing that we don鈥檛 do in this country. We commemorate the World Wars once a year in November and they do it every night at eight o鈥檆lock! I usually have all these bits of information about World War One and World War Two and I could really talk for hours about it to the children. Then of course you do tend to get lots of questions from the children, so you have to answer them as well.

In my case I didn鈥檛 lose a lot of friends or see a lot of the really bad things compared to some people. What you saw in the war depended upon your position in the battle order. There was really only one of our officers that I knew about, a lieutenant who died when he trod on a mine. Really, he was the only one that we lost. Obviously, the poor infantry all down the Front, they got the brunt of it all. Then, there were other people who were pushing forward. We tended to follow on behind.

You always saw the dead bodies of Germans and our own lads in ditches as you moved along, not to mention animals. People often forget that you were going through farmland and of course all the cows, horses and any other animals that got in the way was killed and maybe they had been there for weeks. It was not very pleasant and it was terrible stuff.

For some reason or another, you never thought you wouldn鈥檛 win the war, as it were! You always thought you had right on your side. Of course a lot of things that came out afterwards we didn鈥檛 know about at the time. For example, we didn鈥檛 know about these Concentration Camps. Of course, our section never visited the Concentration Camps or got involved in any of that at all. Looking back on the war as a whole, what we did was worthwhile.鈥�

Conclusion

Jim retired from work in 1987. He has been actively involved in the Normandy Veterans Association since then, mostly as Branch Secretary.

In June 2004 Jim led a party from West Cumbria to Normandy to take part in the 60th Anniversary Commemorations of D-Day. These commemorations took place in the presence of numerous world leaders and Heads of State. Branch members took part in various activities during an eventful pilgrimage, including a Memorial Service for fallen comrades at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Bayeux in the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth, HRH Prince Philip and the French President Jacques Chirac.

The 3-D model of the Normandy Landing Beaches on display in Whitehaven Civic Hall, Cumbria was made by Mr Bill Lodge. Mr Lodge was a former Merchant Seaman and a member of the Newcastle and South Shields Branch of the Normandy Veterans Association. As Jim explains in the above account, it was presented to the West Cumbria Branch in June 1993.

In 2005, Jim and members from the Branch are helping others to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War Two. It is an honour to submit this article on behalf of Jim and other members of the West Cumbria Branch of the Normandy Veterans.

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