Lack of respect

THE decaying flowers left at the Oldham Cenotaph

OLDHAM Council leader Jim McMahon has publicly apologised to D-Day veterans after a dead bunch of flowers was left at the town-centre war memorial.

An 89-year-old veteran of the Normandy landings accused Oldham of being “deeply disrespectful” to memories of the fallen on the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Sprightly Cyril Dunn, an ex-Royal Navy able seaman, from Springhead, was shocked after making a pilgrimage to the memorial.

“There was just a bunch of withered flowers in the centre of the war memorial, which had obviously been there for some time. There were also a couple of other old floral sprays but no official recognition of such an important anniversary. There was no band, no church bells ringing — nothing to mark the day.

“They should have cleaned up the war memorial. It’s as if they just weren’t interested.”

Mr Dunn was on one of the first landing craft to survive the D-Day assault of Omaha Beach.

He was joined at the war memorial by a group of veterans who shared a silent tribute to their fallen colleagues. Some placed tiny wooden crosses near the Normandy memorial.

Cyril’s granddaughter Cheryl said: “The memorial was dirty and had not been tended. There were dead bouquets at the bottom. It was a shameful disgrace.

Councillor McMahon said: “We’ve made the restoration of all our 16 war memorials a political priority — spending £150,000 to bring them up to standard for this year’s centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

“It’s very frustrating that we got on with this project well ahead of time and have then let ourselves down on details like removing dead flowers. We completely accept the veterans’ point of view. It wasn’t good enough and we apologise for the upset.”