Tag: tony delahoy

Nation to unite in annual two-minute silence to remember fallen heroes

His Majesty The King will lead the nation, alongside the Prime Minister and defence chiefs, in a two-minute silence to remember those who died in conflict

  • Almost 10,000 veterans will march past Cenotaph in tribute to servicemen and women that made the ultimate sacrifice
  • For the first time veterans of Britain’s nuclear testing programme will wear new medals announced by the Prime Minister to recognise their special service

In the first Remembrance Sunday service since the Coronation in May of this year, His Majesty The King will be joined by Members of The Royal Family, the Prime Minister, senior politicians, defence chiefs and faith leaders to mark the Armistice of the First World War and all other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces.

Around 10,000 veterans and 800 Armed Forces personnel members from all three services will march past the Cenotaph on Sunday, with thousands more members of the public expected to line Whitehall in London to pay their respects.

Remembrance Sunday is a time of extraordinary unity as communities gather to remember all those who have died on our behalf and tens of thousands of Armed Forces personnel will take part in Remembrance services and events across the country and around the world, including on operations overseas. The National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph will be broadcast live by the BBC and Sky News.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection.

“Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close.

“I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made.”

Of the 9,910 individuals marching this year, 304 different Armed Forces and civilian organisations will be represented, as well as around 300 veterans not affiliated with an association, who have been invited by The Royal British Legion to march for the first time. 

Those marching will also include Nuclear Test Veterans who for the first time, will wear a medal acknowledging their important service. 

The Nuclear Test Medal was announced by the Prime Minister in November 70 years after the first British test of a nuclear weapon, and recognises military, civilian, and overseas staff and personnel who participated in Britain’s nuclear testing programme in the 1950s and 1960s.

Among those marching will be people of all ages – from 100-year-old Second World War veterans through to children of servicemen and women who have died in conflict, with the youngest marcher being just eight years old.

Many of those marching will reflect particularly on conflicts which mark a major anniversary this year, such as the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement and the 20th anniversary of the start of the UK’s military operations in Iraq.

Among the hundreds of Armed Forces personnel on parade at the Cenotaph will be Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin and the service chiefs of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As the nation comes together to remember all those who died serving their country, we remember with gratitude the sacrifices of the entire Armed Forces community and thank all those in uniform who protect our country and its way of life.” 

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said: “For the men and women that gave their today for our tomorrow.

“For the generations before that fought for the freedom of the generation after. For those who stood up, fought for and died to protect our values – today we thank and remember them. I encourage everyone, no matter where you are, to join us in a national two-minute silence in memory of those who served our country.”

Remembrance also reminds us of our solemn responsibility to support the entire Armed Forces community all year round.

The Office for Veterans’ Affairs has been leading government efforts to make the UK the best country in the world to be a veteran. This includes launching Op FORTITUDE, a new housing pathway earlier this year, and Op COURAGE, a dedicated mental healthcare pathway.

The Defence Secretary has also made it his personal priority to ensure serving personnel are properly supported during their time on active duty. This week the Ministry of Defence will announce the roll out of more than £400 million of improvements to living accommodation for service personnel, including upgrades to more than 4,000 military homes.

Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Rt Hon. Johnny Mercer MP, said: “Today we remember those who sacrificed so much for our country and the freedoms we enjoy.

“20 years after the start of the Iraq War, I know that during the two minute’s silence at eleven o’clock, I will be remembering in particular those veterans of that conflict, and the contribution they made.

“This year is also particularly poignant, as it is the first year our Nuclear Test Veterans will march past the Cenotaph with their new medal.”

Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said: “At the Cenotaph, around the country and on operations overseas, members of the Armed Forces will pause to remember all those who have died in service of their country.

“The legacy of the fallen lives on in the dedication and duty of today’s Armed Forces.”

Philippa Rawlinson, Director of Remembrance at the Royal British Legion said: “Remembrance is about bringing communities and individuals together to honour the sacrifices of the Armed Forces community, past and present.

“This year, 60 years on, we are remembering the extraordinary contribution of the millions of National Servicemen conscripted during the post-war years, as well as the sacrifices made by those who served in the Korean War 70 years ago.

“We also mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush and the contribution of the Windrush generation, who travelled from the Caribbean to help rebuild Britain after the Second World War.

“Our Armed Forces make sacrifices every day so we can enjoy our freedoms and way of life. This weekend we encourage people to take a moment to reflect and remember their service.”

THIS morning I will remember my dear old friend TONY DELAHOY who served his country with distinction during the Second World War.

Tony was fortunate enough to survive the war but he never forgot those comrades he fought alongside but had to leave behind.

Last month, friends and family gathered at the Lauriston Farm for a lunch to celebrate Tony’s life and a tree was planted in his honour.

‘A true gentleman’ was a phrase oft repeated on a very special day for all those community members who were privileged to attend.

We will remember him.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will remember them.

TONY DELAHOY

‘Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away’

I am so sad to report that NEN’s dear old friend TONY DELAHOY has passed away.

Tony died ‘peaceful and calm’ at his Silverknowes home at 12:35am yesterday. He was 100.

Family will be in touch with details of funeral arrangements when they have them, and NEN will run a celebration of a remarkable life at that point.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

REUNIONS – and the LEGION d’HONNEUR

I had not wanted to attend any of the reunions in the post war period until the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994. This proved to be a most memorable event and I have returned to Normandy almost every year since.

In 1996 I also attended a reunion of the 55th Anti Tank Regiment accompanied by my son Paul. There I met several of my old comrades; each one with great pleasure. I attended several further reunions in Bury St Edmunds until, due to the advancing years of it’s members, the organising association was disbanded.

Tony Delahoy is pictured above at his investiture as a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur on 15th October 2015. The presentation was made on board the French warship FNS Aquitaine, which was docked at Leith.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

NEW BEGINNINGS

THE house in Malpas Road had belonged to Helen’s mother and we all lived there as a family until Helen’s mother, who had been suffering with a heart condition for some years, passed away in the autumn of 1956.

It was at this very time that I was offered a promotion to take over a school of my own. This, however, required my working in North London and as the post was a residential one it would naturally neccessitate moving from Malpas Road in South East London to accommodation in North London.

With the death of Helen’s mother the house was passed on to Helen and her brother Cyril and a decision was made to sell the house at Malpas Road.

I took up my new appointment as Schoolkeeper of Paddington and Maida Vale High School for Girls, situated in Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale, London W9, and in the December of 1956 Helen, Barbara, Paul and I moved from Malpas Road to begin a new chapter in our lives in a very different part of London.

Naturally this entailed new schools for Barbara and Paul, a new home for the family – and even a new motorcycle in the shape of a BSA N21 with a Watsonian double adult sidecar! This motorcycle bore many similarities with my war service BSA M20.

Our years between 1956 and 1960 were spent in temporary accommodation in a flay in Cosway Street, London NW1, just off the Marylebone Road.

Eventually new accommodation was built for us on the school site and we moved into our new home in the December of 1959 and so on the eve of the 1960s we began the next chapter of our lives.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

COLD WAR CHALLENGES – AND A LIFELONG AMBITION

At this time (1950) a petition had been launched to collect signatures against the proliferatation of nuclear weapons. We in the union branch at the New Cross tram depot decided to set up a Peace Committee to collect signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal.

The Cold War was intensely pursued by the Western powers. Charlie CHaplin was thron out of America and Paul Robeson too.

We had a big meeting in Camberwell to support Paul Robeson, to which he sent a recorded message, but we were up against the full wight of an anti-communist media.

I even stood as one of three candidates for the Communist Party local elections in Debtford, as their proposals seemed at the time to best address the needs of ordinary working people. But this was at the time of the Yangtse incident, where the Chinese communists were fired on by a British warship and the McCarthy era in the United States was in full swing.

The Vauxhall Tram authorities gave permission for a stall to be set up for just one day in the garage – and we were successful in collecting over 900 signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal, which I delivered to their offices near Regent’s Park.

I would collect the Daily Worker newspaper before my shift and do leafletting after my shifts, early morning or late. The shifts were spaced such that it was impossible to go home in between shifts. They were long days away from home.

Over the seven years I was active in the Transport and General Workers Union we were always under pressure and the canteen was a hive of activity with the early morning sales of all kinds of newspapers. We had to prove we were selling all papers inside the garage and not just the Daily Worker – this we did from outside the garage!

Then we were banned from selling the paper when we had tram uniforms on. The attempts at control were relentless.

There were of course already some big improvements such as improved provision if social services and the formation of the National Health Service in 1948; it is hard today to imagine not having an NHS and having to pay to see a doctor.

I knew that improvements to the lives of ordinary working people would have to be fought for by ordinary people like me and the hundreds of thousands of people who were now finding ways of making progress through sound argument and political pressure.

This was the challenge of winning a better future for everyone and pursuing this has been my lifelong ambition.

Progress is never guaranteed and things are sometimes disappointing, but I have seen poverty, war and destructive chaos and I know that only through ordinary working people struggling together will the devastating evils of poverty and war be avoided in the future.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

PEACETIME CHALLENGES: WINNING THE PEACE

OVER the next few weeks there was a period of adjustment back into civilian and domestic life. My demob leave lasted until February 1947. Initially I spent most of the time with Helen an the family at home and making numerous visits to see relatives and friends, many of whom I had not seen in a long while.

All this was undertaken against the backdrop of one of the coldest winters on record, with freezing temperatures and snow that lasted for months.

Rationing was also quite extreme and there were shortages of almost everything. Coal was in very short supply and consequently so, too, was electricity. Food was scarce and making do was still very much the way most people were living day-to-day – but at least the fighting was over and we were grateful for our survival.

A feeling among many at this time was that winning the war against a repressive and brutal regime had been essential, although at an awful cost. But people now talked about ‘Winning the Peace’ and there was much to do.

In the mid-1930s I had started to think about the problems affecting working people and how to change things for the better. Why were there problems of unemployment poverty and hunger – and why were these problems not being solved?

Having served in the army for over five years it had given me, like so many other young men and women, opportunities to talk about these issues and develop a determination not to return to the bad times of the 1930s, but instead to work for a better world. Surely, now, in peacetime, things had to change?

In the future there should be no acceptance of unemployment or poverty, but a need to secure good working conditions, annual leave, sick pay and to tackle the many other issues that needed to be addressed.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

MOVING ON

AFTER some years of working as a tram conductor with London Transport buses took over from tram operation and the general working conditions were not so good.

I applied for a job with the London County Council, as Helen’s uncles and brother had joined LCC’s Schoolkeeping service after the war, and Helen’s stepfather Alf (who was himself working at LCC’s County Hall) suggested that I might try Schoolkeeping as a future occupation.

After discussion with Helen and consideration of the prospects of remaining with London Transport or trying something different, I applied to work for the London County Council and was appointed as an assistant Schoolkeeper at Catford Secondary School.

There I learnt the business of caring for and managing the upkeep of a large and busy school which also had annexes for infants – and a Foot Clinic!

Each had coal fires in every room and larger ones in the hall which had to be kept alight and attended to throughout the day. It was hard worked but rewarding and held the prospect of advancement.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

CAREER CHANGE and GOLDEN OCTOBER

WORK as a milk roundsman was still largely enjoyable and I stayed with the Dairy until well into the summer of 1947. That summer was extremely hot and I remember that the heat made pushing the barrow very difficult as the metal-rimmed wheels dug deep into the softening tar on the roads.

One particular problem for me was the expectation for a milk roundsman to work seven days each week. When I asked for a day off and the foreman insisted that I had to work seven days each week, I decided there and then that they needed someone else, and my life as a milk roundsman was over.

After the years of war service there was a determination on the part of working people for a better way of life, and a return to the old inflexible relationship between employers and the workers was intolerable: the old way’s of working and doffing one’s cap wouldn’t wash any longer.

After leaving the Dairy I applied to work for London Transport and was taken on and trained as a conductor working on the trams, largely on ticket recognition and control. I worked from the New Cross Tram Depot, initially operating on a variety of services until, with sufficient experience of the whole network, I was allocated a regular route and driver. I worked on the number 54 route that ran between the Victoria Station terminus and Grove Park terminus at the top of a huge council estate in South East London.

I enjoyed working on the trams that seemed to glide along and sway gently as they went. Dealing with the electrical pickups both in the road and overhead was interesting, and dealing with people as well as handling money was of course already familiar to me.

My driver was a skilled operator, but when one had a relief driver who was less skilled the difference in the ride was most noticeable, particularly to the conductor who naturally spent the journeys on his feet; one soon learned to balance and move with the movement of the tram!

As time went on plans were being made to replace the trams with buses, and in 1952 my route was converted to buses. This also necessitated a change of depot from New Cross to Peckham. The work of a conductor remained much the same, except that the buses were prone to shaking and jolting and were much harder on the legs of the conductor; sadly the buses did not compare with the gliding smoothness of the trams.

During this time work and home life settled down. Helen’s mother, who had been widowed many years before, had remarried in the final years of the war and now lived with her husband Alf on the lower storey of the house whilst Helen and I lived on the upper floors.

On the 10th of October 1947 in the top floor front room of 64 Malpas Road my daughter Barbara was born, and in 1951 on the 12th of October my son Paul was also born there. On both occassions it had been a beautiful sunny October day.

The 10th of October 1947 was my first day in control as a conductor under the supervision of a regular conductor, on the 46 from Lee Green to Eltham. It was an early morning shift and I remember that conductor calling out to the passengers that ‘the conductor this morning had a baby girl’ – the passengers all cheered!

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

BACK TO WORK

THE question of finding a job after demobilisation was less problematic as the employers were obliged by law to re-employ their former employees, and so I returned to my pre-war occupation as a milk roundsman for the Co-operative Dairy.

The depot I now worked from was located in Long Lane, Southwark – a good distance from my home. I cycled to and from work each day. Work involved pushing a heavily loaded milk barrow on my daily round. The pre-war norm of early, mid and late deliveries each day was now reduced to one delivery, lasting from about 7am until 2pm, but of course there was still the loading of bottles and accounting of monies to attend to.

One memorable incident at this time happened when, having parked my heavily loaded barrow just off Tower Bridge Road and making a delivery, the barrow must have been struck by a passing vehicle. The result of this was a good deal of the day’s supply of milk now lay smashed and running down the gutter.

A small crowd had gathered, including a policeman who was surveying the scene. This was quite a serious problem as milk was still rationed and the loss of such a large quantity posed a problem, not least for me! I then had the job of righting the barrow and of salvaging as many of the unbroken bottles as I could before making some of the remaining deliveries, and explaining to those customers who were not getting any milk that day.

Someone, presumably from a local newspaper, must have been in the area and took a photograph of the scene. The item appeared in the local newspaper under the headline ‘Making the ration go further’.