This was a personal pilgrimage. My uncle (my father’s brother) died in World War II in 1941. His plane went down over the sea while on convoy duties. All three airmen died. One body was washed up on a beach on the south east coast of England. My unlce and his Flight Officer were lost at sea.
When I was a child I remember coming here with my mum, dad and brother, but I’d not been back. On one of the plaques has my uncle’s name on. All together there are 20,000 names of RAF men who died in World War II.
To get to the memorial is a long walk up a long steep hill from Egham station. Egham was quite a surprise. Apart from the usual building site (new apartments are being built and you have to negotiate around the site), the shopping precinct is rather nice, and reminds me a little of Tunbridge Wells in Kent. There are references here to The Great Charter of Freedoms, otherwise known as the Magna Carta, which was signed at Runnymede in 1215.
The RAF Memorial is situated on top of a hill almost next door to a student campus belonging to the Royal Holloway University, and the views from here are spectacular. We already had details of the panel where my uncle’s name was to be found. Some years ago I began researching my family tree on both my mother’s and father’s side, going back to the late 1700’s. My cousin has letters my uncle wrote home, including one written just days before that fateful flight. This makes it all the more poignant. One of letters mention having seen my dad, so the two brothers must have been in part of the same camp for some of the time.
The memorial is very peaceful, and there is a room where people can find which panel their loved one’s name appears on, if they don’t already know. I only had vague memories of being here before, so it was great to come back as a adult and pay me respect to the uncle I never met. Some years ago I was lucky enough to visit the Poppy Factory in Richmond. Here we saw how the poppies were made, as well as the wreaths. We all had a go at making a poppy of our own, an extra large one you see some people wearing. We also had an opportunity to leave a poppy cross to be put with others at Westminster for Remembrance Sunday. So I wrote one for my Uncle Billie. My dad always recokened I’d have really got on really well with my uncle. I got the impression he was quite a character.
We found the panel with my uncle’s name on it, and also found the panel with the Flight Officer’s name. We then ate our packed lunch in the peaceful setting of the grounds before heading off to try and find the J F Kennedy Memorial which is located on National Trust property. It was a lovely walk down through a shady stepped path. Afterwards we came out onto some flat ground to an art installation called The Jurors. All the chairs have different ‘pictures’ both back and front of the chair backs. Had we walked a little further on we would have crossed a road and come to the River Thames. But that is for another day. The next Thames path walk will take me passed this this place on the way to Datchet, but seeing this separately was a much better idea, because it would have been too much of a trek off the path.
We retraced our steps and found the Steps of Comtemplation with a lovely view across towards the river, and then it was the long trek back to Egham station and home.
Steps of Contemplation
My London+ 