Dear Editor,

In July 1940, my father enlisted and went off to war – Jim Bytheway was one of 12 children, several of his brothers and sisters were already serving their country. Jim was a Game Keeper and had married his childhood sweetheart, Barbara, and in the August I was born.

After his initial training he was allowed home on leave and these were times that would keep him going in the years to come. Although I was very young I remember both my Dad and Mum coming home on leave – my mother had joined the NAFFI – I remember being carried shoulder high along the lovely Shropshire country roads.

Then one day came the dreaded telegram – my Dad had been shot dead in a cornfield on the outskirts of Caen.

From that day my life was never going to be the same. Many do not understand what this does to a child of five years old – I remember thinking perhaps if I was extra good my darling daddy would come back to me – it left me with little confidence and I always felt it necessary to please people, in fact this has stayed with me all my life. You see the word “counselling” had not been invented, it was a case that you had to just get on with things. I am so pleased that the children of today get the help that I and many thousands did not.

I remember visiting his grave in Hermonsville Cemetery, it was small in comparison to many others, with 600 graves.

I went on a coach with many Veterans, and as I entered, something drew me straight to his grave and then all the tears I had kept within me for over 50 years flowed.

I was joined by everyone on the coach and together with a Piper we held a short service. At that time I wanted to bring my Dad back home, but on my second visit with my daughter and grandson I realised he was where he would have wanted to be, with his pals, the men who really looked up to him and loved him as their brother.

Last Saturday, I planted one of the first crosses in the Remembrance Garden in the Market Place and I will be at the Service on Remembrance Sunday but that isn’t over for me – the Sunday after Remembrance Sunday, together with my family, we go to a small village near Ludlow where a Memorial was built in memory of my Dad and three other lads from the village who never returned.

I laid the first wreath when I was 14 years old, and now my grandchildren do it for me. Over the past few years, Jason (Jim’s Great Grandson) carries the Ross-on-Wye Royal British Legion’s Branch Standard. How proud I am and I know he will keep his memory alive over the years to come.

Margaret Jones

Royal British Legion Secretary,

Ross-on-Wye