2019 Remembrance Service at The 10th Battalion Memorial,
Burrough on the Hill, Leicestershire
A remarkable weekend when 10th Battalion and Rifle Brigade Veteran, Victor Gregg visited Leicestershire to remember his comrades lost during Operation Market Garden.
Vic, who celebrated his 100th Birthday on October 15th, drove the 150 miles from Winchester to Somerby (yes! Drove!) and spent the weekend with Friends of The Tenth. Vic was not well enough to attend the recent unveiling of The Memorial but fully recovered to visit Somerby for the first time since emplaning for Market Garden in September 1944. Vic described the visit as a ‘Pilgrimage’ he needed to make.
On Saturday evening Vic met Liset Vos, who travelled from Oosterbeek, the village in the Netherlands where the Battalion was wiped out. Dinner was at the Stag and Hounds in Burrough on the Hill, the little pub where 10th Battalion’s Capt. Myles Henry (KIA Arnhem) and his new bride, Pam, were billeted in 1944.
On Sunday, Vic laid a wreath for his fallen comrades at the service conducted by FOTT’s Padre, Brian McAvoy. Almost 100 attended the service included many Paras and relatives of the men of the battalion.
After the service, Vic visited Somerby Village Memorial Hall, where the battalion was entertained and assembled in 1944. The men were briefed in the hall prior to emplaning for Arnhem.
Following Sunday lunch in The Saddle pub in Twyford, another haunt of the battalion, Vic returned to his hosts in Somerby and drove back home to Winchester on Monday morning. Needless to say, he arrived safe and sound, completing the drive in just three hours – what an extraordinary and remarkable man – forever Airborne.
