Hundreds mourn ‘forgotten’ Dambusters veteran

HUNDREDS of mourners attended the funeral of a Bomber Command veteran they had never met, following a newspaper and internet appeal to honour him.

Servicemen and commuters at a service of remembrance at Glasgow Central Station. Picture: HEMEDIA

Harold Jellicoe Percival died aged 99 at a nursing home on the Lancashire coast with “few friends and little family”, and staff feared no-one would be there to pay their respects.

He was part of the ground team which supported the legendary Dambusters squadron, whose daring raids in May 1943 smashed three dams serving the industrial heartland of the Ruhr valley.

But after a public appeal for the Second World War veteran, an estimated 300 people attended the service at Lytham St Annes, with traffic blocking roads in the area and space running out in the crematorium. He was laid to rest yesterday at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month.

War veteran Harold Jellicoe Percival. Picture: PA

Standing in silence, as millions around the world marked Armistice Day, members of the public, old soldiers and serving servicemen and women awaited the arrival of Mr Percival’s funeral cortege at the crematorium.

“It’s just staggering,” his nephew, Andre Collyer-Worsell, said after attending the service.

“It just shows how great the British public are. He was not a hero, he was just someone who did his duty in World War Two, just as his brother and sister did and his father before him in World War One.

“We were expecting a few people, a few local veterans, but suddenly it snowballed.

Garden of Remembrance in Edinburgh. Picture: Greg Macvean

“It’s the sort of send-off you would want to give any loved one. It’s very emotional.” Born in Penge, south London, in 1914, Mr Percival had two sisters and a brother, and was described as a very private person, who lived a “nomadic lifestyle” after leaving the RAF. He never married or had children.

He worked as a painter and decorator and emigrated to Australia before returning to the UK, travelling around England with his only possessions in a backpack. He settled in Lancashire and was cared for in the Alistre Lodge Nursing and Care Home in Lytham St Annes until his death on 25 October.

Fittingly, his coffin, with the distinctive blue RAF flag on top, was borne into the crematorium to the sound of the theme from The Dambusters, the popular 1955 film. As the two-minute silence was held, hundreds stood still in the rain at Lytham Park Crematorium, before the Last Post was played and Mr Percival’s coffin was removed from the hearse to a round of applause.

In reference to a small appeal for mourners in the Lytham St Annes Express, which snowballed into an internet campaign, the Reverend Alan Clark told mourners: “We marvel at the power of the printed word. You have come in numbers surpassing anything that was expected. Not because you knew him, but because each of us has a common humanity.”

Mr Percival was known as an independent man who knew his own mind and enjoyed reading his newspaper each morning, mourners were told. The Lord’s Prayer was read and the hymn Jerusalem sung before the Last Post was played a final time.

Nursing home staff who cared for Mr Percival wiped away tears as the service ended. Lorraine Holt, matron at the home, said: “We have lots of veterans at the home and every one of them should be remembered like this.”

Duke leads armistice tributes in Ypres

The Duke of Edinburgh led tributes to fallen troops at the scene of some of the First World War’s most deadly battles.

Prince Philip attended the Last Post ceremony in Ypres, Belgium, yesterday, to mark Armistice Day and see the collection of soil from Flanders Fields for a new memorial garden at the Guards Museum in London. It was the 92-year-old Duke’s first foreign visit since undergoing abdominal surgery in June, when he spent almost two weeks in hospital.

A crowd of hundreds gathered at the vast stone-walled monument which is engraved with the names of nearly 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who never came home and whose bodies have never been recovered.

A minute’s silence was held before the Duke and Prince Laurent, of Belgium, each laid a poppy wreath.

Schoolchildren from the UK and Belgium carried 70 sandbags filled with earth from 70 First World War battlefields in Flanders to a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery.

Scots take time to remember fallen heroes

Armistice day was commemorated across Scotland as people stopped to remember those who have died in wars.

Veterans’ charity Erskine held a service at its Edinburgh home.

A piper played as wreaths were laid at the home’s memorial stone following two minutes of silence.

In Glasgow, a new memorial stone was unveiled at Central Station, dedicated to railway staff who died in the Second World War and subsequent conflicts.

The polished, black granite memorial sits beneath the bronze memorial to the First World War.

Alex Salmond observed the two-minute silence in the village of Strichen in Aberdeenshire.

He later announced the first three recipients of a £1 million Centenary Memorials Restoration Fund.

“Scotland’s war memorials are a lasting tribute to fallen servicemen and women and it is hugely important that they are maintained,” the First Minister said.