My dad died on 19 April 2009 and is greatly loved
Many months after dad died I'm only now posting some thoughts, memories and newspaper reports about him. Perhaps the delay is marginally mitigated by the fact that this is the first bit of my website that I've updated since his death. |
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Dad died at home, peacefully at the end, and had not suffered a great deal despite the combination of things he was dealing with. His funeral was at Devizes crematorium on 27 April, and his life was further celebrated by family and friends at a gathering in the Leipzig Plantation, a wood on the downs above Devizes on 14 June (his birthday).
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Dad and mum outside their home not so long ago | ||
the
wreath I made for dad's funeral - rosemary and lilac and ribbons
to remember his medals for heroism. Our hero. |
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At dad's funeral we played a recordings of Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending" (which dad had requested), "Pokarekare Ana" and Peter Gabriel's “I Grieve”. Mum read out the poem:
(We'd been told this was by "anonymous" but on checking just now for the words I find it was by Leo Marks and its history is poignant too - click here for more info). |
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Mum talks to family and friends at dad's birthday celebration / memorial in the Leipzig Plantation near Devizes |
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the cake (with edible picture of dad - a somewhat odd experience for us all). More about the newspaper cuttings below. |
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Dad
and his older brother Frank who died shortly before him in Christchurch,
New Zealand, where they were brought up.
Click here for a letter from dad's younger brother Bob (from Melbourne, Australia) - sent for his funeral but read at his memorial. |
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| My dad was a hero and we have newpaper cuttings to prove it |
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On 14 June 1950 dad rescued the signaller from their Wellington aircraft which had crashed and was on fire. In the crash dad had sustained severe injuries. Rather bizarely, the London Gazette (3 Oct 1950) report on the award of the George Medal to dad mentions a crushed fracture of the spine after refering to a head cut and burns on the leg. Otherwise, its a great article: read it here. The report was picked up two days later by two Christchurch New Zealand newspapers (click here and here). Another report for the New Zealand "Free Lance" in November 1950 includes yet another handsome photo, a bit more info, and the fact that my grandfather, Francis Harvey, had trained as a cadet pilot in the RAF, attached to No.4 Squadron, No.5 Wing... A google search returns interesting stuff but I've not checked it all yet...
Francis (granddad), uncle Frank and dad in NZ army uniforms - sometime before dad was transfered to the airforce and thence to RAF.
Meanwhile, my brother Paul has been reading through dad's RAF log books and following various things up. So we can show you a couple of the planes dad flew in...
Avro Lancaster B Mk III of 195 Squadron
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| updated 19 November 2009 | ||||
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