Honouring the D-Day Fallen

Essex’s oldest Normandy veteran

A commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D Day landing in Normandy, including a gun salute, took place at the Living Memorial site at White House Farm in Rettendon.  It started with a pipers’ parade past the memorial, followed by the service, and ending with a bugler playing the Last Post, a two-minute silence, and then wreaths laid at the memorial.

104-year-old Sapper Donald Sheppard is the father of Mrs. O’Brien (long term School Mentor at Buttsbury Junior School).  He is Essex’s oldest Normandy veteran, having been a Royal Engineer in the Highland Division and a dispatch rider during the D-Day landings.  Don wanted a place locally for people to remember and pay their respects, and so he worked tirelessly to have the memorial built.  As he is no longer able, at the age of 104, to travel to Normandy, or even to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, the D-Day Living Memorial in Rettendon provides an opportunity for him to remember the landings and pay tribute to his comrades who never returned from the beaches of Normandy.

Mr Sheppard has been visiting Buttsbury Junior School for many years and has a special place in the children’s hearts. The school is both privileged and honoured to have been invited to attend this event and very proud tolay a wreath, made by the children, on behalf of Buttsbury Junior School.

At The Living Memorial

This special D-Day 80th. Anniversary service was open to all, and was held beside the site’s D-Day memorial.  
Mr Sheppard told ITV News Anglia (our thanks to ITV for the reported quotes below) that he was too old to make the trip to Normandy but was pleased to see so many turn out closer to home to pay their respects.

“Eighty years ago, I was a youth. It was like an adventure. We were going into action, and I think most of us, deep inside us, had anxiety over it but we were there to do it.  A great job has been done here and it’s nice that it’s been made so public, so that people can meet and sit and discuss feelings.  But it wasn’t just my idea. There’s nothing special about me. ...This is a great day because there’s hundreds out there - men that have done the job that I’ve done and it’s nice for them to get publicity.”

Mr Sheppard had spent years planning the event, and his daughter said that it had kept him going during tough times.  Joanna O’Brien said: “Today has given my dad the strength to stay alive. He’s battled really hard over the last couple of weeks, counting each day. It’s what he’s wanted to keep him living.  From this day forward every extra day is a bonus, but this is the day that he wanted to achieve.”

Buttsbury RotaKids Starred

The ceremony was attended by hundreds of people, and two of the Buttsbury RotaKids were interviewed by ITV.

One Buttsury pupil said:
“Donald is amazing because he lived in the war and he goes to our school every Remembrance Day and he tells us his stories and it’s just really cool to hear about all of that.  Another said: “It’s great to listen to all of his stories and he tells us about D-Day and how he suffered during the war. It’s just an honour to be here tonight with all the veterans and the people that have come here to pay their respects.”