History is a record of the past. It can provide you with the details and, with a little imagination, you can envisage the events unfolding and, with hindsight, ponder what it must have been like to be there in the moment. Words, no matter how eloquent, can ever describe the sacrifices made, or the trauma suffered in order to protect the freedoms we now enjoy and so easily take for granted.
If you are lucky, life presents you with the opportunity to sit in company and speak of heroes disguised as ordinary men and women who saw themselves not as special in any way, but simply doing what had to be done. In Sunday’s pre-recorded show we were given the opportunity to sit and talk of one such ordinary person who would not thank you for calling him special and dismiss any thought or word of hero status. Just an ordinary Scottish lad doing his bit for King and country.
Lynn Defty was our guest on Around Town last year and her father, the late John Morrison, was one such ordinary person who, like thousands of others, served their country, many who never returned home to their loved ones. The show was packed with stories and anecdotes of John’s life, his family, his service in the RAF, and having been blown out of the sky on a mission over occupied territory, his time as a POW, and his repatriation to his family and civilian life.
After the show, Lynn showed us her father’s leather flight helmet, which was recovered under extraordinary circumstances in 2003, and Andy and I had the chance to hold it and examine the wear and damage to it caused on that fateful mission. For us, it was a very humbling experience, and we are grateful to Lynn for coming on the show and sharing her father’s story with us.
Phill & Andy,
Around Town, Aycliffe Radio.