6:20pm Friday 5th June 2009
By Jon Livesey
A GROUP of regulars from an East Lancashire pub are in Normandy to honour the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Among the 11 people from the Rising Sun pub, in Whalley New Road, Wilpshire, is Graham Threlfall, whose close friend and former Blackburn Lion Norman Johnson was an aide to D-Day commander Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in the military police after the Second World War.
The 65-year-old, of Belvedere Road, Wilpshire, said the pair of them first travelled to northern France 10 years ago to lay wreaths on some of the graves, and the travelling contingent from the pub has grown each year thereafter.
Mr Threlfall’s cousin Keith Miller wrote a book called Finding Uncle John about his grandfather’s brother, who died in the First World War. He and Mr Johnson, who moved to France two years ago, have also been to Berlin to lay a wreath on his grave.
Mr Threlfall said: “It has become a tradition. It can be emotional, but we meet some nice people.”
Geoff Sutcliffe, landlord at the Rising Sun, added: “We go to pay homage to people who fell for us.”
The group once laid a wreath on the grave of Darwen boy Jackie Banks, who is thought to be the youngest to die in the D-Day landings, aged just 16.
Although no official commemoration ceremonies are being organised, members of Royal British Legion branches in Blackburn, Darwen and Nelson will be taking a few moments to remember those who died in Normandy on this day in 1944.
Bryan Thompson, president of the Darwen branch of the Royal British Legion, said they will visit the Jackie Banks memorial in the town.
Mr Thompson will also remember another Darwen solider, Harry Parkin, who was parachuted in the day before the D-Day landings.
He was shot in the leg and sent home. He returned weeks later, but was not given a Normandy landings medal until years later.
In Blackburn Royal British Legion branch secretary Des Owen said they will be having a few “quiet moments” in Corporation Park.
Members of the Nelson Branch will also visit the memorial in the town.
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