D-1

A great privilege to be in Normandy thirty years ago, and again twenty years ago, meeting the sprightly veterans in their sixties, and then their seventies, of the invasion of France. My Dad had gone across an Italian beach by then (directed by Maj Dennis Healey) and was heading towards Rome.

My uncle slipped the moorings of his MTB some time in that night in 1944 and was off the French coast before dawn, ready to stop any E boats from trying to spoil the party.