Two Wartime Tales

 Carrying on from my last post where I promised more information on some of the photos I'd taken.

The sculpture above by Ray Lonsdale is on Scarborough's North Bay.  It's called Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers.  It was sited on the North Bay for a four week period but a petition was set up by a local resident, Maureen Robinson, to keep the sculpture in place.  With a short time  to go before the removal of the sculpture she purchased it and gifted it to the town.  It is now cared for by the local council.

Freddie Gilroy (1921-2008) was born in County Durham to a mining family.  He went to work at the local mine but also joined the Territorial Army.  In 1939 at the start of war he was called up to be a gun aimer for the Royal Artillery.  Towards the end of the war he became a Regimental Police Officer.  On the 15th April 1945 he was part of the force sent to Hamburg to liberate Bergen Belsen.  The horrors of what he experienced stayed with him for the rest of his life.  He spent his 24th birthday within the camp and when interviewed by a local newspaper in the 1980s he confessed that he had cried on every birthday since then.

That's Scarborough Castle in the background, shrouded in the morning mist.

In the Canadian Memorial hanger at the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington is the Halifax Bomber called Friday 13th.

We watched a small film in the on site cinema about how it came to be named.  Bomber Command 158 Squadron flew Halifax bombers from nearby RAF Lissett each plane having it's own unique call sign.  By 1944 all Halifax Bombers given the F for Freddy designation had been lost so when the new one arrived it was deemed to be unlucky.  On it's first mission in March 1944 bomber LV907 F broke that run of bad luck.  That night 95 aircraft were lost but LV907 returned.  The Canadian crew decided to call it Friday 13th to 'jinx' it even more, they painted many images of bad luck onto the plane and defiantly embraced the F for Freddy superstition.  LV907 Friday 13th went on to return safely from 128 more missions before the end of the war.  This particular Halifax was held in great affection by its crews and of course they all wanted to fly on missions in this aircraft.

Here is a - link - to more about this plane.

The Longest Yarn

The Longest Yarn - A Thread through History - is a travelling exhibition which depicts, in 80 panels, the lead up to the D Day landings of 6th June 1944, the Longest Day.  It was completed in time for this year's 80th anniversary.

Above Stoke Minster. The iron railings guard the resting place of potter Josiah Wedgwood.

The Longest Yarn is on display at Stoke Minster until 5th December and on Friday morning we went along to see it.

The inspiration for the 3D project came about as an idea from a lady called Tansy Foster who initially wanted to create a topper for her garden wall but the idea grew.  The 80 panels, each a metre long, represent the 80 years since the events and the 80 days of The Battle of Normandy.

Each panel depicts events happening across Britain and France on that one day and has been constructed by volunteer knitters from across Europe, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Photographs from the time inspired the creators of the panels.  Above President Eisenhower makes the final decision to go.

The detail in each display is amazing.

Parachutes landing and getting caught on buildings and trees.

Above the bombing of Carentan station.

After a while it became impossible to take photos as the Minster became quite crowded but the whole exhibition is quite spectacular and very detailed.

This morning when we passed by the Minster on our way to walk at Westport Lake there were queues waiting to get inside.  I'm so glad we visited yesterday.

There is so much more to see than the items I have photographed, apologies for the fuzziness of some of them. 

Above Stoke Minster in sunshine as we left the exhibition.

The exhibition is moving on to Tewkesbury Abbey from here, then to Enniskillen, Norwich and Peterborough before it leaves these shores to travel to Cape May, New Jersey in the USA in April next year.

A smaller exhibition of Britain at War is being made at the moment comprising of just 6 panels ready to go on tour next September.