4 NOVEMBER 2000 THE ARCHER : 020 8444 1341 The Flowers of Remembrance By Diana Cormack World War I came to an end on 11 November 1918. The Armistice bringing peace after four awful years was signed at 11 am in the Forest of Compiegne, in northern France. Despite the terrible conditions on the battlefields, the blood-red poppy managed to survive and flower. This gave a Frenchwoman called Madame Guerin the idea, copied by others, of making artificial poppies. Illustration of Mk1 No 615 Sqn 1940 by John Boyd In 1922, helped by Earl that war too. our country, where wreaths of Haig, who had commanded the Silent Tribute poppies are still laid. Tribute to a Pilot British army in the war, the The one-minute’s silence held With the fiftieth anniversaries British Legion opened the first of VE and VJ Days (marking at 11am on 11 November, when By Daphne Chamberlain poppy factory in Britain. The everyone stopped what they were victories in Europe and against poppies were made by disabled Japan) we have begun to hold the This is my tribute to a World War II pilot. I can’t doing, was extended to two, remember his name, but I shall never forget him. ex-servicemen and were sold to thus remembering the dead of two minutes’ silence at 11am on raise money for these victims both World Wars. These silences 11 November again. The people In the 60s, when I was a in his cockpit as if from a of “the war to end all wars.” gradually died out and were held who died in the two World Wars very young library assistant blowlamp nozzle. There was Unfortunately that was not to be, only on the Sunday nearest to 11 and all the wars, which have at Church End, he was a regu- an explosion, another huge for another World War began in November during Remembrance sadly occurred since then, gave lar borrower. His face had flash, and his whole body and 1939. When it ended in 1945, Day ceremonies at the Cenotaph up everything. When you think been badly damaged, but his face were wreathed in flames... poppies were sold to support in London and other war memori- about it, two minutes isn’t that personality was un-dented: His eyelids and nose were the men and women injured in als in towns and villages all over much to give in return. brisk, cheerful and confident. burnt away, his legs and body At first sight, as he must have horribly scarred.” known, it was his scars that Tom Gleave survived, to The Escape people noticed, but by the become a member of the Battle second meeting they were just of Britain Fighters’ Associa- By Toni Morgan a part of him. tion. 544 pilots were killed, We heard that he had fought followed by a further 794 from On 17 June 1940, Private Albert in the , and November 1940 to August Victor Nutting found himself was one of the “Guinea Pigs” 1945. Between 600 and 700 a survivor of one of the worst treated by Archibald McIndoe. needed plastic surgery through- As many people know, it was out the war. troopship disasters in British McIndoe’s experimental work Squadron Leader Gleave Maritime history. He was part with burned airmen at Queen described himself and his of the remnant of the British Victoria hospital in East Grin- fellow Guinea Pigs as “all Expeditionary Force trying to stead which pioneered plastic but dead casualties, who have get back to England following surgery. become living miracles.” Peter the invasion of France. They had Flash fire Williams and Ted Harrison been taken on board the HMS We didn’t know any details wrote a book* about them, Lancastria, which was lying of our Church End pilot’s called “McIndoe’s Army - at anchor outside St Nazaire injuries, but I was reading a Injured Airmen Who Faced Harbour, and on that warm June book recently about front-line The World.” One of them was afternoon with over 6000 mixed nurses in World War II. One our Church End pilot. paragraph read, “In the summer You can find out more about troops onboard, she was sunk by the Guinea Pigs at the RAF enemy aircraft with enormous of 1940, the badly burnt airman was a problem confronting Museum, Colindale. loss of life. *Published by Pelham, 1979. Many of the survivors were picked nurses all too frequently. Squad- ron Leader Tom Gleave’s case (ISBN no. 0-7207-1191-6) up by a French destroyer and taken to “Front-Line Nurse” is by Eric a convent in St Nazaire. Vic Nutting was typical. His Hurricane was hit by cannon-shells, and great Taylor. (Robert Hale, 1997. decided he had to escape and with the ISBN no.0-7090-5819-5) help of one of the Sisters of Mercy spouts of flame engulfed him who found him an overcoat and some Vic and Gwen Nutting shoes, ladies high heels if you please, enjoying their Golden he managed to make his way to the wedding celebrations. Talking to ghosts port, and with the assistance of two Photo by Toni Morgan French gendarmes who put him on a stretcher and took him by Trinity Church and they started Dunkirk 2000: Maurice Kanareck joined the Dunkirk Veterans Association in the ambulance to the harbour, he their married life in his parents’ final, 60th anniversary pilgrimage. joined the crowds who were home in East Finchley, where It was the last time that the veterans would gather at Dunkirk and a day that combined trying to board anything to get they still live. Their son Chris the formal and the informal. There was the formal march past with the veterans them away from the town. Two was born in East Finchley and days later he and many other bearing their own standards, some in wheelchairs pushed by their comrades, but attended Holy Trinity school. all erect, blazered, be-medalled and proudly wearing berets proclaiming the cap survivors arrived in Devonport On 17 June 2000 Gwen and where Vic spent the next two Vic celebrated their Golden badges of many famed regiments. There was the informal: a lively group of French and a half months in a military Wedding and just a week before grandmothers, all in local costume, singing their hearts out. Their voices echoed across hospital recovering from his they marked the occasion with the quayside, blending strangely with the strains of Vera Lynn tapes from a boat appalling burns. a party at Holy Trinity infants moored further down as Prince Charles inspected the Little Ships. Golden Years ‘school. Together with their son Following his departure we War Memorial and a fly-past by a puppy. Many servicemen, he On his return to civilian life Chris, daughter-in-law Eileen descended ourselves to the planes from the RAF Memorial told us, could not bear to leave in East Finchley, Vic met his and granddaughter Charlotte quayside and spoke to some of Flight we strolled down onto abandoned animals behind and future wife, Gwendoline who they were joined by other the owners of the boats. I was the sandy beach. The veteran’s a considerable number came had been an evacuee, and on the members of their family and particularly taken by one which thoughts must have been of a back, tucked under battledress 17 June 1950 (this time dressed many friends. A truly romantic had been the property of Com- very different scene, sixty years blouses. in his own clothes) he led his occasion after the horrors of mander Lightoller, the senior ago. One of them, William He told us that one of the bride down the aisle of Holy war sixty years earlier. surviving officer of the Titanic. Blackwell , a dapper, twinkle- biggest problems when they In 1940 he had skippered her to eyed, pipe-smoking youngster got back was men bunking off Dunkirk to return to Ramsgate of eighty-four, told us that, back when they reached their home Finchley Elim with 130 men. in 1940, he waited for thirty- town, so when he embarked on After the moving Service six hours on the Mole before a train back in England they of Remembrance at the Allied being taken off, together with were all locked in. When they Pentecostal Church stopped in his home town of Tunbridge Wells he was unable Refreshing Spiritual lives since 1937 East Finchley Baptist Church to get off but, spotting a mate on just off the High Road in Creighton Avenue N2 the platform, he rapped on the Come and worship with us window and yelled ‘Tell mum this Sunday at 11 am Sundays at 11.00 am and 6.30 pm I’m all right - it’s Tunbridge Salvation Army Hall for more information contact 8883 5743 Wells 271’. Hertford Road (off High Road) As my friend so eloquently East Finchley Visitors always welcome put it, we had been talking Enquiries - 020 8444 5472 to ghosts.

2000Nov04.indd 1 29/10/00, 21:46