A DAY TO REMEMBER..

The picture above shows the memorial - at Lepe on the Hampshire coast - to the men of the armed forces who left the beach at Lepe in June, 1944, to take part in Operation Overlord - the D-Day landings which have their 65th commemoration today. And 65 years ago I was a month short of my fifth birthday and with my father having been taken as a prisoner of war at Dunkirk, I lived with my mother, her sister and her husband in the village of Blackfield, which is strung out along the road from Southampton down to Lepe, a mile or two away.

It`s strange, today of all days, to plumb the depths of my memory and recall what life was like for me all those years ago growing up in wartime. In truth, I don`t remember too much - maybe just as well - but some things are still very sharp and clear. Having been born just before the outbreak of the war, I assumed that wartime was in some way `normal.` I had never known anything different and thought that this was how life was - sleeping under the stairs at 40, Hampton Lane, as the bombs rained down each night on the docks and city of Southampton and as some of the `strays` hit the ground quite close to where we lived.

Another abiding memory was when the build up of troops took place in advance of D-Day itself. For what seemed like days on end, a constant stream of military vehicles of all descriptions thundered down Hampton Lane on their way down to Lepe, where so much activity was taking place. And when the American contingents swept through Blackfield, we went out onto the side of the road and took up the plaintive cry, "Got any gum, chum?" and I will never forget that in all the sound and fury of preparing for battle, we children were thrown packets of sweets and chewing gum from the passing trucks in an act of kindness that has not been forgotten.

These days, Lepe has a splendid country park and probably the most spectacular view across to the Isle of Wight that it`s possible to get. But as well as the monument, there are still signs of the vast constructions which were necessary for Operation Overlord to succeed. Thankfully and quite properly the events at Lepe are recalled and recorded at sites such as http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hampshire-countryside/lepe/lepe-history/d-day-lepe.htm.

But for a boy of nearly five years old, what seemed then to be an adventure was, of course, an event that has shaped our lives ever since. And so today, as on all the other 6ths of June, I look back through my childhood memory, give thanks and acknowledge the realisation that my `normal` life was anything but.