Lest we Forget

[firbeck 860]

Don't forget it's the 65th Anniversary of D-Day today, 130,000 Allied troops went into action on the beaches of Normandy, happily BBC News 24 seem to be giving it plenty of live coverage, I've already had a tear in my eye listening to some of the vets.

I'm off up to the war memorial shortly with a poppy, I wonder if anyone else will be there. Interestingly enough it's Braintree Carnival today, and the town will be in complete chaos, I wouldn't be surprised if theres the odd jeep tucked in amongst the floats somewhere.

[mariag 4]

Been watching on bbc world news.

[firbeck 860]

Did anybody else watch any of it, I left the telly on all day while bumbling about the house and garden.

I thought that the British ceremonies at Arromanches had a much more laid back, veteran orientated and human face than the Franco-American pomp and circumstance at Omaha, or Obama Beach as Brown rather succinctly described it by mistake.

Of the four speeches made there, the French one was overblown, overlong and hardly mentioned the British at all, surprise, surprise. Browns speech was crap, Obamas speech was pretty good as usual and delivered without notes, Prince Charles sat there like a spare, after all he was an after thought and he knew it. The Canadian premier was terrific, delivering a speech without notes in a mixture of French and English, good on him.

Beefsteak would have liked the flypast, 4 French Rafaels, 4 RAF Typhoons and 4 USAF F-15's that did a missing man routine. I have to say that the RAF Typhoons, who were flying so close, looked and sounded like something from Star Wars, especially compared to the ageing F-15's.

The BBMF did three passes over Arromanches in low cloud and rain and most impressive they were too, much appreciated by the old boys.

I have to say, that like him or not, or was out of order to boo and jeer Brown when he arrived at Arromanches, whoever it was merely insulted the old vets, who were suffering the rain and the wait, it was all about the occasion, not what anyone thought of Brown.

It was a sad occasion for me as my son and I had vowed to take my old man back to the scene of his landing this year, but it was not to be, I had to make do with putting a poppy and a note on our local war memorial this year, the only one, I presume that the great and good Braintree British Legion were obviously too tied up with the local carnival yesterday to bother remembering, what makes it worse is that I am quite aware that some local soldiers were killed in Normandy in 1944.