A wreath was laid in a churchyard in Killinghall on Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the death of a local RAF pilot in the Second World War.
Flying officer Ted Thackway lost his life on Black Thursday — the worst night in British military aviation history. He was just 23 years old.
Bilton-born Ted was part of the elite RAF Pathfinder force that guided British bombers to their targets.
He was one of five men killed flying back to Britain from Berlin when their Lancaster crashed in dense fog near Hardwick, east of their home airfield of RAF Station Bourn. Two members of the crew survived. Fifty members of the Pathfinders crews died on the night of December 16 and 17 due to fog and low cloud.
Ted Thackway. Pic: rafpathfinders.com
Relatives laid a wreath on Ted’s grave at St Thomas the Apostle in Killinghall, where his headstone is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Debbie Havercroft said her father, who died in 2021, brought them up on tales about Ted, whose youthfulness and modest upbringing made him something of a rarity among RAF officers.
Nick Wrightson, who lives in Birstwirth, said Ted grew up in Killinghall and Bilton and left school at 15 before joining the RAF in 1939 aged 19.
Ted (left) with his family in Bilton in 1938. Pic: www.rafpathfinders.com
His funeral was held at St John’s in Bilton, where Ted had been a choir boy, and later that day he was buried at Killinghall, where his mother had grown up. His grandfather had been churchwarden at St Thomas.
Ted’s mother Elsie met a Canadian after the war, remarried and moved to a town called Egansville, where a commemoration also took place marking the 80th anniversary of his death.
You can read more about Ted and Black Thursday here.
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Harrogate Thalidomide campaigner lays wreath 60 years on
Harrogate Thalidomide campaigner Guy Tweedy has laid a wreath to pay tribute to victims of the morning sickness ‘wonder drug’.
Mr Tweedy placed the wreath at the foot of a copper beech tree planted on the Harrogate’s Montpellier Hill in 2012.
The tree was the UK’s first-ever memorial to those who died as a result of their mothers being prescribed the drug in the early stages of pregnancy.
The wreath commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Thalidomide Society, which was formed in 1962 by the parents of children affected by the drug.
Mr Tweedy, who turns 60 in June and is himself a Thalidomider, is a prominent campaigner for the society.
The society was formed by parents of children affected by the drug in order to provide mutual support and seek compensation.
At least 2,000 babies in the UK were born due to Thalidomide, and more than half of them died within their first year. An unknown number also died in the womb.
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Common deformities included missing or shortened limbs, blindness, brain damage and missing internal organs.
442 UK Thalidomiders still alive
There are a total of 442 Thalidomiders aged between 56 and 63 still alive in the UK today.
Over the last two decades, Mr Tweedy – who sufferers from shortened arms and fingers fused together, has helped secure hundreds of millions of pounds from the government for the ongoing care of fellow survivors.
He said:
“A decade ago, we planted this tree to commemorate those who died from this hideous drug. Thalidomide was the worst man-made disaster in peace time history.
“It killed thousands of babies in the womb and in their first years of life. It left thousands more with terrible deformities and affected the lives of thousands of families around the world.
“For the last ten years I have watched the memorial tree grow – and it will be here long after I, and all the other Thalidomide survivors, have passed away.
“The Harrogate district has seven thalidomide survivors, and since its inception 60 years ago the Thalidomide Society has fought our corner and championed our welfare.
“Whilst this wreath is to commemorate the victims of this tragedy, it’s also to recognise the ongoing work of the Thalidomide Society which aims to ensure the impact of thalidomide is never forgotten.