POPPIES PRIDE
D-Day veteran Bernard Morgan, 98, receives poppy from girl, 6, at Royal British Legion appeal launch
D-DAY veteran Bernard Morgan, 98, receives a poppy from a girl of six at the launch of this year’s Royal British Legion appeal.
Although more than nine decades separate former RAF sergeant Bernard and Maya Reynard, both of them have been helped by the veterans’ charity.
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It paid for Bernard, of Crewe, Cheshire, to return to Normandy to remember comrades killed in action in June, 1944, and for Maya to go to the Invictus Games with mum Sally.
Ex-RAF corporal Sally, 46, of Hook, Hants, suffered a knee injury serving in Afghanistan and won a swimming silver at the event in the Netherlands.
They were among ten veterans whose stories were told on a 20ft wall of poppies unveiled in London yesterday.
Also featured was Chantelle Wynn, whose Army Medical Corps husband Ryan killed himself nine years after suffering PTSD following a tour in Afghanistan.
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Chantelle, 45, of Tamworth, Staffs, said: “After Ryan passed away, my world was upside down. Someone told me to go to the British Legion but I thought they were for the old boys like Bernard.
“They gave me a shoulder to cry on, helped me fill out the forms and paid my bills.”
Kingsman Anthony Cooper, 35, who lost his legs and an eye to a bomb in Afghanistan, said the RBL helped convert his home and eased his mental state.
He said: “Without the Legion I wouldn’t be here. Times are hard but give anything you can afford to buy a poppy and wear it with pride.”
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The British Legion has seen a 20 per cent rise in requests for help with food and heating bills from veterans in the past 12 months. Its financial advice service helped 2,000 people.
BUY your poppy from the Legion’s 40,000 collectors nationwide or visit .
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