Cameras stolen? No problem, Downing saves the D-Day
BRILLIANT: Express photographer John Downing
D-Day memories: My dear old pal Geoff Levy, the Express’ great chief features writer before being wooed by David English to the Mail, reminded me of this time 40 years ago when I despatched him and the brilliant photographer John Downing to Normandy with four D-Day veterans. (Those were the days for the Express when talents like those two were just some of the glittering roll-call of editorial staff.)
With his classic desire to create stories with his pictures, Downing went about setting the stage for each of the four vets with incredible detail. He sat the infantryman on a German foxhole and spent more than an hour collecting wild flowers to lay at his feet - symbolising the horrible death that came to so many on the beach with the fresh new life which followed.
He took the glider pilot back to the corner of the burial ground where he had deliberately crashed the plane so that his D-Day passengers could scramble out and join the fight.
He took the parachutist back to the very spot where a German Tiger tank had blasted a wall where he and colleagues were sheltering. Many had been killed and Downing knew he had to stand his man alongside the perfect, 10-ft circle of new bricks that had replaced the gaping hole after the war.
John’s only happy picture of the day was of the sergeant who had seen a young girl hurtling past on the coast road on a bike as he came ashore at 7am. He found her and there were many tears as they embraced. All this in Downing's camera. A treasure-trove of D-Day memories.
‘The job was done,’ says Geoff. ‘Just one last look, the now-matronly lady who had been on the bike, led us to a small local cemetery of Allied dead where I had parked the hire car just outside.’
On their return a neat large hole could clearly be seen in the boot where the lock had been. All Downing's cameras were gone. Everything was gone missing, including the precious rolls of film that John had exposed that day.
In the end he located a camera shop which sold only the most rudimentary of equipment. Still, any camera was better than none. For two hours he scooted around with the veterans reshooting their stories. 'And you know what?' says Geoff, 'they were still great pictures.’
Of course Downing was distraught at the theft of his equipment (as no doubt was managing editor Struan Coupar when he saw his exes claim for a vast range of replacements) but, as always, John came up with the goods. His pictures were perfect and made a great Spread. Levy and Downing at their very best.
All of which was a mere bagatelle compared with what the Veterans had gone though in 1944.
John Downing , great photographer and fine singer died in 2020 aged 79. Geoff Levy is still going strong I’m delighted to report
*****
In my last outing on these pages I mused on the great big whoppers that are an inevitable feature of elections everywhere. Now it’s the turn of Apologies I Have to Make but Don’t Really Mean. Step forward those nice people in Reform UK.
One of their number, Ian Gribbin, has managed the dubious double of both praising Putin and declaring that we should not have waged war on Hitler. Obergruppenfuhrer Gibbin is of the opinion that Churchill’s military strategy was ‘abysmal’ and that we should have remained neutral as all of Europe fell to the Nazis. Had we done so the UK ‘would be in a far better state than it is now.’ A totalitarian state presumably.
As for Hitler’s natural successor Vladimir Putin, he felt the warmth of Gribbin’s grubby endorsement just a month before he sent his poor bloody troops into Ukraine. ‘If only the West had politicians of his class.’
When these comments were unearthed by the BBC Gribbin, the candidate for Battle and Bexhill came up with that old ‘these comments have been taken out of context’ line and of course ‘it’s all the fault of journalists for offence archaeology,’ whatever that is. (Just for good measure, he ruled out 52 per cent of his potential voters by saying women should be denied healthcare because they don’t contribute enough: ‘they are the sponging gender.’)
Sadly he is not the exception. Far from it; the candidate in Barnsley North, Robert Lomas, says ‘black people should get off their lazy arses and stop acting like savages,’ while Hugo Miller (Horsham) referred to rioters jumping on a car as ‘jungle bunnies ... like the baboons in Windsor Safari Park.’
The list is long, but one, ‘Baron’ Marc Burca who once owned Boardroom magazine before selling it to our old friend Lord Hollick, is a stand-out chump. The ‘baron’ is 72, four times married, and defends Ghislaine Maxwell. ‘She facilitated a few 16 and 17-year-old girls to meet their clients. None of the girls was forced.’
Barca who likes being photographed at Ascot in full regalia, is from the Posho Wing of Reform. Just like its moneybags funder Richard Tice and man-of-the-people Nigel Farage. Needless to say he is standing in Kensington and Bayswater. Well you didn’t expect Batley and Spen surely?
With people like these in the party, is it any wonder that Farage, with his sinister fake grin, is Trump’s Great Defender. As we say in Ireland ‘there’s a pair of them in it.’ The Washington Post revealed that the Orange Manbaby, as the Daily Star memorably headlined him, told no less than 30,573 untruths (lies to you and me) during his four years in the White House.
Most recently Trump has been caught out in the case of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old Michigan woman murdered by an illegal immigrant this year. ‘I’ve spoken to the bereaved family of this incredible young woman, I would love to see them.’ Ruby’s sister Mavi immediately called him out: ‘He has not contacted any of my family, he’s lying.’
Farage, Braverman and Johnson: By your friends shall ye be judged...
*****
Mention of expenses claims earlier brings to mind a report in the Belfast Telegraph on the investigation into potential corruption by two PSNI anti-corruption officers. It follows revelations by the excellent Bel Tel into high expense claims by the two officers. Now the chief constable has launched a criminal inquiry.
The trouble is, unlike seasoned hacks whose imagination soared to great heights when claiming exes, the officers were not so clever (allegedly.) Three claims each of more than £120 for breakfast at a café where the most expensive dish was £7.45. And, to make matters worse, the place had closed four years earlier.
The poorest-researched claim was for a £119 case of wine for ‘information received’. The problem is the informant never got the gift. And he was a strict teetotaller!
*****
Story of the day, thanks to The Times Diary: David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, that fine cricketer and charismatic commentator, turned out for Lancashire’s Over-70s and made 89 not out. He was not wearing a box because he no longer had one, though that was very nearly not the only things he didn’t own.
Fifty years ago he was hit in the groin by a 90mph Jeff Thomson snorter. The impact was so fierce that the missile inverted the box. ‘I didn’t need a doctor,’ said Bumble, ‘I needed a welder.’
ALAN FRAME
12 June 2024
