Pappy

Highly commended

Grace C
St Anne’s School

Judge’s comments

Dear Great Pappy,

I write to you with a sense of longing for you are someone I never got to meet yet somehow know. I wish I could have sat with you, listened to your voice and seen the world, a world that no longer exists these days, through your eyes. The stories shared about you only make your absence feel more, knowing about you makes everyone miss you even more but makes it feel like you are here with us.

You lived quite the life. As Home News Editor of The Times newspaper, your work carried you into the lives of so many people, gathering and sharing their stories. Even Winston Churchill crossed your path, imagine the moment, history in conversation. And there was your time in the War. I often think about you as a rear gunner in a Lancaster bomber, in what you would call “the loneliest place there was.” High above the darkness surrounded by noise and fear. What thoughts passed through your mind?

From an article you were asked to write for The Times, Alderney entered your life and then became your home, becoming an entirely new chapter for you and your family, far away from your busy London lives. Yet you never slowed down. You carried on with journalism, but more than that you gave yourself to the community, becoming part of the island’s story as much as it became part of yours.

How I wish I could have known you myself. Not just through stories but in person. Still, I feel your presence in the lives you touched and the legacy you left behind.

With love from across the generations,

Your Great-Granddaughter Grace

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