A VIP delegation from a French village where an Ilkeston woman’s brave RAF father was killed 83 years ago have visited Erewash to honour the borough’s war dead – after she turned detective to track down the hero’s grave.
Geraldine Lamb never got to meet her dad. He perished in a plane crash hours after she was born in 1940. The hero, 23, was unaware he had a daughter. The only thing that Geraldine knew as a little girl was that her father George Clawley was an RAF sergeant and that he was buried somewhere in France.
He was an observer in a plane that was shot down as it battled to hold off a German advance three days after Dunkirk.
Geraldine, now 83, eventually set about tracking down his final resting place. It was 20 years before the gran and her family finally got to visit the grave.
They discovered it in the French village of Vergies near Amiens. The plane pilot and a crewmate are buried alongside.
Annual pilgrimages by the family have since seen them become friends with the villagers – whose mayor Xavier Lenglet came to Erewash for the November 11th and 12th remembrance services.
The French tricolour was flown alongside the Union flag as he and the Mayor of Erewash laid wreaths at Ilkeston’s Cenotaph.
Geraldine’s daughter Veronica Dixon said: “Every year the residents of Vergies honour fallen allied soldiers and airmen alongside their own fatalities in the war. They play the National Anthem alongside their own Marseillaise.
“Xavier and the rest of the villagers are always so welcoming and have previously asked my husband to participate in the recital for French fallen soldiers killed in action.”
Erewash Mayor Councillor Frank Phillips hosted a buffet for his honoured guests at Ilkeston Town Hall on Sunday 12th Nov after a service at St Mary’s Church – which was followed by the wreath-laying at the Market Place Memorial.
Councillor Phillips’ own father was a wireless operator and air gunner aboard a similar Fairey battle bomber over France at around the same time. The Mayor, who presented his French counterpart with a plaque, said: “He was one of the few who returned. The ultimate sacrifice of Geraldine’s father sums up how much we owe to the bravery of our war heroes – British, French and all nationalities who stood up to tyranny.
“I am proud to welcome our friends from France as we remember the fallen.”