Filey to welcome last remaining Caribbean WW2 servicemen
There's a plaque unveiling tomorrow
Filey is welcoming the last remaining servicemen from the Caribbean who fought in World War Two.
They will unveil a plaque tomorrow (Saturday 1st April) which remembers their contributions from serving at RAF Hunmanby.
Glenn Parsons had two uncles who sacrificed their lives and he has been campaigning for this for a while.
He said: "We're going to be delighted to receive the attendance of, we hope, four of the original veterans who were stationed at RAF Hunmanby. Their ages range from 96 to 99, so they are the very last of these intrepid veterans.
"Back in 1940, a request was sent out across the Caribbean for fighters to come and they did as volunteers. Some 4,000 came to RAF Hunmanby and of course it's important to note that this was the best part of a decade before the empire windrush even set sail.
"Filey has a very special place in the history of immigration in this country because the first sight of village life in this country by people from the Caribbean was probably Hunmanby and Filey during the Second World War.
"It was a commandeered Air Force base built as a Butlins camp and they were stationed there, some sadly died and there are graves around this part of the country and in Harrogate. It's noted with sadness that some were as young as 19 when they came to these shores but were to never return home.
"They sacrificed alongside British soldiers but at the end of the war their contributions were completely expunged from the history books. They were simply airbrushed out of history. Their contributions were never really recorded and hasn't been celebrated and I, along with other people, thought that was simply not right.
"My uncles were to tell stories of playing crickets with the local Filey cricket team, having tea with the Vicar, there's some wonderful photographs and it showed long before, what we know now as massive immigration, that people were coming to these shores and being very well received as the UK's fighting force."