My sister and I, and our husbands, have just made a family pilgrimage to the island of Öckerö. A few years ago we made the discovery that our uncle was buried there. Our father had always spoken about Leslie (Robert Leslie Sinclair Ritchie), his big brother, and we are familiar with boyhood tales of them digging tunnels in the garden to sneak through to a neighbour’s; rigging a buzzer system on the bottom step of the stairs to alert them that an adult was coming up the stairs and they had to stub out their cigarettes and open their window to get the smoke out; and we were particularly proud of the fact that Dad claimed he invented an automatic gearbox!  Our dad spoke more of his brother than his dad. We promised ourselves we would make the trip to pay our respects to our uncle. Then Covid got in the way. But, this week, we made it and found a beautiful graveyard with beautiful monument to the fallen servicemen. Our uncle Leslie’s headstone does not have an epitaph nor his age. We are not sure why this is. He was 26 when he died. He was born in Edinburgh and grew up in the leafy suburb of Joppa. He went to the Royal High School and the attached photograph is from the school’s Roll of Honour book which lists every pupil who served his country in 1939-45. This is the best photo we have of him. We received quite a bit of information from the Wyckenby Museum. Leslie, an airman of 12 Squadron, flew all his missions out of RAF Binbrook, but 12 Squardron moved to Wyckenby in September 1942 when it was completed. His crew took part in 16 operations together – imagine what close pals they must have become! P/O: Rowe D. W.; Nav: Sgt. Ritchie R. L.S.; W/Op: Sgt. Graves L. M. D.; F. Gunner: Sgt. Sharp A.; R Gunner: Sgt. Black C.  They flew together on: 2 missions in May 1942, 2 in June, 7 in July, 5 in August. On our visit this week, we arranged for the local priest to say a few words with us at the graveside and we have left a wreath of summer flowers. His sacrifice, and those of his comrades, will never be forgotten.