By: Scouse - 9th February 2012 at 15:11
Certainly the end of an era for those who wore their country’s uniform.
Perhaps the First World War has not yet completely slipped across the horizon of human memory, as for a while there will be those whose childhoods will have been shaped by first-hand experience of the war in one way or another.
No doubt there are still a few French and Belgians who remember all too well the noise, terror and bewilderment of what went on around them, while others in the UK and the US may recall the maimed and crippled returning from the conflict.
I have an aunt, 101 in April, who still has all her wits about her, and while she is alive I still feel a personal link to those days, while she recalls the arrivals of the wounded and the celebrations that broke out on Armistice day – her father ran a pub in Birmingham and it was just about drunk dry!
Many of us will have known people who fought in that war, and now it is up to us to preserve our inherited memories. I particularly treasure a meeting some years ago with an old gent who had been batman to Britain’s only double VC, Noel Chavasse. His description of the circumstances in which Chavasse won his VC and bar was real living history and I only wish I’d had a tape recorder to hand.
Chavasse had been in the RAMC, and his batman only ever referred to him as “the doctor” – prompting the thought that maybe he had arrived on the Tardis after all:)
By: GrahamSimons - 9th February 2012 at 11:19
I’m not sure how many can see this clip, but it was featured on Anglia TV tueday evening – for those who can, moving images and voice really portray what this lady was like!
By: low'n'slow - 9th February 2012 at 10:59
Literally, the end of an era….
By: waghorn41 - 8th February 2012 at 18:01
RIP Florence
By: Al - 8th February 2012 at 08:57
RIP Florence.
I suppose, going by that bell curve, some veterans of WW2 should still be with us until around 2033…
By: jack windsor - 8th February 2012 at 08:42
re-1st WW now history…
hi,morning,
no disrespect was intended,but i caught the details of this lady but not her name,and i,d seen nor heard nothing only the one report on local radio.I wanted to record this historic occurence, on this forum as i know it would be both appreciated and of interest to members…
apologies again,and regards
jack…
By: Bager1968 - 8th February 2012 at 01:50
Let’s give her the dignity of speaking her name, shall we?
Florence Green, last WW1 veteran, dies
Published: Feb. 7, 2012 at 7:46 PM
KINGS LYNN, England, Feb. 7 (UPI) — Florence Green, a veteran of the Women’s Royal Air Force and the last living veteran of World War I, died at the age of 110 in an English nursing home.
Green died in her sleep during the weekend, the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press reported.
While she became the last survivor of the millions who served in the war, Green was only identified as a veteran in 2008, the newspaper said. A gerontology researcher discovered her service records, which were under her maiden name, Patterson.
“She would never blow her own trumpet and certainly wouldn’t shout about the fact she was the last veteran,” June Evetts, at 76 the youngest of her three children, said.
Green enlisted at the age of 17 in 1918 and worked as a waitress in the officer’s mess at RAF Marham.
The base, home to wooden biplanes during World War I, now houses supersonic Tornadoes, which have seen service in Afghanistan.
Green said she enjoyed her work but discovered when a pilot took her up for a spin that she was afraid of flying.
In her last years, Green lived with her older daughter in Kings Lynn until moving to the nursing home just before Christmas. RAF Squadron Leader Paula Wilmott said a delegation from Marham had been planning to visit Green this Friday with a cake for her upcoming 111th birthday.
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February 7, 2012 at 8:36 pm