*UPDATE*: This event has been cancelled as a mark of respect for Her Majesty.
Free tours will be held at Stonefall Cemetery next month where visitors can learn about some of the remarkable men and women of the Commonwealth forces who are buried there.
They are being organised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) as part of the Heritage Open Days Scheme and will take place on September 10, 15, 17 and 18.
More than 1,000 casualties from both world wars are buried at Stonefall Cemetery.
Staff will be telling some new stories this year including the story of Dorothy Robson also known as ‘Bomb Sight Bertha’, the engineer who was instrumental in the development of the bomb sight on bombers and Flight Lieutenant Vincent Parker who was known as the ‘Locksmith of Colditz’.
On September 15, members of the public can also try their hand at stone engraving and will learn about how the CWGC maintains the headstones at the cemetery.
The director of external relations at the CWGC, Liz Woodfield, said:
“Everyone in Harrogate is very welcome to attend the Heritage Open Days at Stonefall Cemetery. They’re a great opportunity to learn how the CWGC honours and cares for the men and women of the Commonwealth who died in the First and Second World Wars, ensuring they will never be forgotten.
“There’ll be plenty going on from fascinating tours and talks to interactive activities such as stone engraving. Visitors will also learn how the CWGC is becoming more sustainable and is playing its part in tackling the key environmental concerns of our time.”
To book a free tour, visit www.cwgc.org/opendays .
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Tributes paid to Harrogate D-Day veteran, who has died aged 97
Tributes have been paid to a Harrogate’s D-Day veteran who has died at the age of 97.
John Rushton, who was also known as Jack among friends, passed away peacefully at Harrogate District Hospital after a visit from his family on New Year’s Day.
Mr Rushton not only fought in World War II but when he settled in Harrogate in the 1970s he carried on in public service with his work at Harrogate College and the Tewit Youth Band.
On VE Day in May 2020, he was the star of the town’s celebrations. Leaning out of his window, he watched performances and warmed the hearts of his neighbours. He told the Stray Ferret on the day:
“It’s very nice that they would do all this for me. I don’t deserve it, I just happen to be the one that has lived the longest.
“I have had a good life. It’s very good of them to have done this as if I am a hero. I am not, I am just an ordinary Yorkshireman.”
Mr Rushton was never one to command attention and always rejected the title of hero, but he was held in high regard by his peers and all that knew him.
Dave Rushton, one of John’s four sons, said:
“We are very sad but my dad has left a great legacy and history. We have had so many goodwill messages, which has been an enormous help.
“He fought the illness really hard, he fought right to the end. I want to put on record our thanks to the staff on Wensleydale Ward and at Lister House care home in Ripon.
“I think people will remember him for his character. So many people have told me how much of a character he was, even if he never thought he was a hero.
“We did manage to get in a trip back in 2019 to Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day. We had hoped to go again but we certainly ended on a high.
“I already know a lot about his life but since his passing I have learned a lot more about the affection people held him in.”
A British Army spokesman said:
“We are indebted to the bravery of Mr Rushton and his comrades. Our thoughts are with Mr Rushton’s family and friends at this difficult time.”
David Houlgate, vice chair of the Knaresborough branch of the Royal British Legion, said:
“What I will say is clearly he was in a sense a true hero of this country. John defended this country and helped to free Europe from tyranny.”
The life of John ‘Jack’ Rushton
Mr Rushton was born in Doncaster on May 24, 1924, where he was brought up and educated before leaving school to become an apprentice joiner.
At the outbreak of World War II because he was too young to enlist, he joined the home guard before he volunteered for service shortly after his 18th birthday.
On the night of June 5, 1944, he set off from Portsmouth, having been sent in place of another marine who had taken ill.
The crossing was made in a flat bottomed tank landing craft, and as the weather was poor, he sheltered with a comrade underneath one of the tanks, lying on top of the ammunition.
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It was such a rough crossing, he later said he preferred being shot at in France to staying on board.
Arriving on the Normandy beach at 6am on June 6 he proceeded to deploy and arm his unit’s tanks and guns and spent much of the assault without his helmet or rifle as they impeded his tasks.
During that day, he narrowly avoided death three times including running over an anti-tank mine several times. He often says with a wry smile that only the good die young. He also says that the real heroes are the ones who didn’t return home.
Jack ready to celebrate VE Day in 2020.
Having been promoted to Sergeant, Jack was then sent out to India, travelling by ship and often sleeping on riveted steel decks. On arrival in Bombay his unit was tasked with keeping the peace during the country’s internal struggles, and later training to join the war against Japan further east.
In 1945 he was sent to Malaysia to await deployment to the battlefront, however when the atomic bombs were dropped, he was spared the ordeal of the next fight.
Although the war was now over, his unit was sent back to India to help quell a naval mutiny, and as a result, he didn’t make it home until 1946, when he was demobbed, and returned to Doncaster.
He moved jobs and towns before he settled in 1972 with a final family move to Harrogate College of Further Education.
Jack retired in 1988 and turned to his interests in the local brass bands and the Royal Naval Association. He was widowed in 2012 after almost 61 years of marriage and has four children, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Meet the Starbeck thrill-seeker, 86, who loves to fly Spitfires
Starbeck thrill-seeker Roy Slim, 86, says flying 4,000 feet in the sky in World War Two Spitfires makes him feel young again.
The fearless octogenarian fulfilled a lifetime ambition to fly one of the planes for the first time well into his 80s and hopes to go again in early 2022. Spitfires were used by the RAF throughout the war, most famously in the Battle of Britain against the Luftwaffe.
Mr Slim has lived in Harrogate for over 60 years after working as a radio engineer at RAF Dishforth in the 1950s. However, his love of the Spitfire was forged as a boy, as he was brought up a stone’s throw from where they were built at Castle Bromwich in the Midlands.
He said:
“I used to dream that one day I’ll fly one of those things.”
When he flew the Spitfire, he had full control of the plane and even performed barrel rolls. He followed the same route pilots took during the war down the English Channel and over the white cliffs of Dover.
Roy Slim in the sky.
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Mr Slim said he has a deep respect for the brave men who flew the planes during the war.
“I am thinking, somebody has sat in this seat coming back from France having shot down a German plane, and I’m sitting in that seat!”
He said the experience is “tremendous”.
“I felt like my lifetime ambition was coming true.”
Mr Slim turned 86 today and has no intention of slowing down. As well as Spitfires, he’s learned to fly helicopters, Tiger Moths and performed skydives — all after he turned 80.