A few years ago a chance meeting in the street led to a major new website which has had considerable national prominence. I had known John Head for some time as somebody to pass the time of day with. I knew that he was interested in history and he knew of my interest in certain areas.
John mentioned a talk he gave with Dennis O'Callaghan about a little known massacre during the Second World War in the run up to the evacuation from Dunkirk. I was intrigued and went along to one of John and Dennis' talks and that led to a suggestion that we should set-up a website to the massacre which took place at Le Paradis in northern France on May 27th, 1940.
I went along to meet Dennis who is the son of one of the two survivors of the massacre. Ninety seven men didn't survive. There then followed a fascinating story about the two survivors - Privates Bill O'Callaghan from Dereham and Bert Pooley from London. Dennis had boxfulls of cuttings and memorabilia.
So we set up a website and the whole thing snowballed. John got in touch with numerous families of those who died in the massacre and, subsequently, those who had relatives fighting in the area at the time. We launched the website in Dereham and set-up a properly constituted Le Paradis Commemoration Group which consisted of myself, John, Dennis, historian Nick Smith and a number of months later we were joined by Rob Edwards.
Rob had a particular interest in working towards having a permanent memorial in Norfolk for the 97 who died in the massacre. That gathered pace as well with a special Memorial group being set-up to work alongside the commemoration group. There are numerous memorials to those killed in France but none in the UK. The memorial group has been spectacularly successful and it is anticipated that a new memorial will be in place in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral Close in 2021. It will be in a bay around the west end of the Cathedral and close to the memorial to Edith Cavell.
Today the Le Paradis website has hundreds of pages of description, photographs and memorabilia and articles on the massacre have made a number of newspapers and magazines.
The massacre itself involved 99 men from the Royal Norfolk, the Royal Scots and other regiments being rounded up in the small hamlet of Le Paradis (literally meaning Paradise) and being marched to a barn despite surrendering. There they were machine gunned and then bayoneted by Nazi troops led by Fritz Knoechlein who was later tracked down and hanged for war crimes.
As I have said two survived. Bert Pooley suffered severe injuries and subsequently had to have his legs amputated. Bill O'Callaghan spent the rest of the war as a prisoner before returning to Dereham.
That in a nutshell is the story. But, as I have said, there are many side stories included on the website. Myself and John Head get together on a fairly regular basis to update and add to the site which you can find at www.leparadismassacre.com. John has done a wonderful job tracking down families and keeping in touch with them. In normal times we have travelled all over the country listening to memories and adding to our site.
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One of the biggest joys in my life is being able to support and help people living in Hethersett. Many people have many skills, but I like to think that writing, communicating and helping are amongst my better traits - we won't go into my bad ones!
And since March I have felt that the best way I can help people is through writing and primarily through my blogs and freelance work for the Archant group.
I have been delighted this week to see my article on Endometriosis featured in the Eatsern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News and yesterday my story about the Snadwich Superheroes of Hethersett appeared.
There will be lots more about these stories and much more when my 143 page Hethersett Herald is published online later today.