Introduction

This news has particularly poignance for many of our members as we mentioned in the last episode. A number of our members have visited commemorative loctions initially with a small group to Jersey to look at the ‘opposing’ viewpoint and how the Channel Islands survived the wars but the major event was when a large group (~20 in total) took to the road at the end of August to visit various sites in Normandy for remembrance.

Normandy - the start,middle and the end…

We started off as two groups, one group going on the Euro Tunnel to Calais and another group heading over on the Ferry via Dieppe We all then congregated at Honfleur on a sunny Friday morning. The Eurotunnel group stayed up near Calais on the Friday evening (no one mention cheese - if you know, you know….) after taking the Shuttle in the afternoon and the remaining group travelled overnight and arrived early in the morning but were closer to the RV and the group riding down from Calais had a 3 hour ride (including stops!) so all were glad to actually meet up and head over to the Hotel (which was awesome - a welcome sight!). So a relatively relaxed remainder of the day to recover.

On the Saturday we headed off to Pegasus bridge which was quite spectacular. We had hoped to meet the owner of the Pegasus Bridge Café (Café Gondre) who unfortunately wasn’t in residence at the time but we still enjoyed the sites and especially the museum and surrounding area. Once we’d completed a number of the sites around the vicinity of the bridge, on the way back to the hotel we called at Ranville Church and CWC Cemetery in Crepon. It was all very moving although it was really quiet almost as if the entire country had taken the day off and were having their own days of reflection!

On the Sunday members of the group visited the 4th-7th Dragoon Guards memorial at Cruelly. This was also in acknowledgement of brethren of St Patricks Lodge 295 Irish Constitution who may have fought their way ashore and inland. St Patrick’s Lodge 295 (IC) meet in Wiltshire Province at Warminster.

The group then went over to the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer overlooking Gold beach where it was made even more poignant to discover a memorial to a fallen Brother Freemason.

So quite an emotional time for many of us for a whole plethora of reasons - lets hope these memories and the many anecdotes of those who fought for our freedoms in many many ways will remain in our hearts and minds to show us the highs and lows and impacts of wars.

It was all a very humbling experience, a really great group and we will be repeating something similar next year but may turn left or right when we arrive in France - to be decided!

Footnote - WBro Dave Hughes (Assistant Secretary) - whilst writing this I have my own reflections as my entire purpose of this trip was as homage to my hero, my father, who was there on D-Day +1, was on ‘the infamous bridge’ at Arnhem and volunteered to liberate Belson with the Americans so this was just my way to have a little insight as he, like many ithers, never spoke about it and it was only ever shared with me many years later just before my mother passed (my dad died when I was really young). I recently found all his medals too in a box I’d forgotten I even had.