Couple’s garage carries a personal salute to heroes of D-Day Landings
A life-long fascination with planes, and in particular fighter jets, has inspired one Fenland grandmother to create her own memorial to the D-Day landings.
Carol Smith, 70, from Wisbech has taken almost a year to complete the mural which adorns the garage at her home in Oldfield Lane.
She explained: “I have always had a fascination with flying and planes and would love to have been a fighter pilot.
“I wanted to be a military nurse but, at 16, I needed to leave home and it was going to take too long to sign up.
“But the thought of flying and being part of the armed services never left me.
“Then last summer we were at a craft fair and I spotted this metal cut-out of a Lancaster bomber. It really caught my eye, but it was quite expensive, so we didn’t buy it.
“But when I got home I kept thinking about it and I wished I’d bought it. We then did a bit of digging to try to find the person who was selling it and found the Rusty Rooster – a company based in Wimblington.
“We contacted them and we bought the bomber, but then we had to think about what to do with it, and that’s where the idea for a memorial started.
“At Christmas my daughter Kirstie and Gary bought me a kneeling soldier and my friend Julie bought me some metal-work poppies.
“Gary bricked up the garage door and used the wall as the background
“When the plane, soldier and poppies were in place I knew there was still something missing and then I saw an image with parachutists and I knew that was it.
“This is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings and I thought it was appropriate to mark that milestone.
“I want local people to understand what happened and to ask questions. I found my own children and grandchildren had little idea of what exactly D-Day was.
"We get quite a lot of children walking past and I hope they have a look at what we have created and that it makes them think of the sacrifices those servicement made."
The D-Day Landings on June 6 1944 was the largest seaborne invasion in history and it claimed the lives of thousands of servicemen and French civilians.
