'The Seven Ages' - Interview with founder about his life
Title
'The Seven Ages' - Interview with founder about his life
Description
Interview with Leonard Cheshire. He talks about school, the ATC, university and other memories of early life. Continues with events leading to, and outbreak of the war and joining the RAF. Continues with promotions and command of 617 Squadron, operations and his award of Victoria Cross. The continues with motivation in founding Cheshire homes, meeting Sue Rider and now having 200 homes worldwide. Continues with how religion play a fundamental part in his foundation and other comments about homes. Submitted with caption 'Written on original insert 'The Seven Ages (Dad) 8/4/89'. Interview with Leonard Cheshire about his life, interspersed with songs he has chosen that remind him of certain stages in his life. Broadcast Sat 8th Apr 1989, 18:30 on BBC Radio 2'.
This item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
This item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
Date
1989-04-08
Language
Type
Format
Audio recording 00:25:40
Publisher
Rights
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
Identifier
SCheshireGL72021v20019-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20019-0001-Transcript
Transcription
Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project
File Title: 'The Seven Ages (Dad) 8/4/89'. Interview with founder about his life Duration: 25 mins 42 secs
Transcription date: 05/08/20
Archive Number: AV-S_261
Start of Transcription
00:00: Leonard Cheshire: At school I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. It looked such a wonderful place to explore. I mean Africa, you’ve read about Africa – I’d love to go to Africa. We knew nothing about the poverty of Africa, and I just thought sunshine, games, you know, roam about, and everything seemed beautiful, and the thought of war by contrast with this appalled me.
0028: Interviewer: Yes, of course.
0029: LC: I joined the ATC. I did everything you should do, and quite enjoyed it, but I thought well, war’s not for me. I just couldn’t understand why nations had to go to war.
0038: I: Were you an introspective kind of young man would you say?
0042: LC: I perhaps had a serious side to me. People used to … even in the Air Force people would come up to me and say ‘You know, it can’t really be as bad as all that’, and all I was aware of was just sitting there brooding or whatever, thinking. They used to say that at Oxford too.
0057: I: What did you major in at university?
0059: LC: I had no option. You see Father was Professor of Law. I mean he’d written 2 standard text books already. So, Chris and I had to read law. I was quite pleased. I mean I enjoyed law as a subject, but I didn’t think much of law as a profession. It was going to mean too much thinking.
01:19 I: And you have Old Man River to punctuate this second decade.
01:23: LC: The memory of mother. Mother played such a part in my life. She died younger than Father, so Father remained an influence later in my life. But it reminds me of Mother – those happy lovely days at prep school and home Stowe then Oxford.
01:43 [music – Old Man River] to 04:08
04:09: I: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: law, as you said earlier was not your strong point should we say at University. But you studied languages too did you not?
04:18: LC: I didn’t study them in the formal sense, but I used to go to France a lot ‘cos one of my aunts had married a Romanian and they lived in Paris. So, I learnt French from an early age, and I spoke it reasonably then, but my last term at school Father sent me away to Germany to learn German.
04:37: I: Well how long did they give you to do it in for goodness sake?
04:40: LC: I was there for about 5 months, and I learnt it almost fluently. It came naturally to me you see. But the sad thing is I never spoke it for 35 years, and so I’ve forgotten it. I can speak it; I can pronounce it, and I’d give anything to get it back, ‘cos now I’ve got reason to want to speak German and to be able to go and discuss things in German. It’s one of those sad things. You should never do that. You learn a language – don’t let it go.
05:07: I: And while you were at university you had your first taste of flying, didn’t you?
05:11: LC: Well you had to join one of the cadet corps – or whatever they called them – ATC – you know. I thought well, I’m not going to be an infantryman – that’s the last thing I want – so do something different. – I always wanted to do something different. Well, I’ll go for the cavalry. But you turned up at 7 am; there’s a corporal or sergeant who utterly balled you out, and you had to run at a horse and jump on it and somersault off it backwards, and I thought well this isn’t for me, so I’ll choose the … what’s the most sedentary thing I can find – and that was flying. I went to the air squadron. And I was very lucky because I felt at home in an aircraft – I felt safe in an aircraft. I’d have never managed on the ground as a soldier.
05:56: I: You feel it was almost second nature to you, did you?
05:57: LC: It came as second nature.
06:01: I: And what have you chosen for this period of your life (musically speaking).
06:05: Night and Day
06:06: I: Why?
06:07: LC: Well, we had the elegant Fred Astaire, and I don’t know – he symbolised what I thought I wanted out of life – a good life. Minimum work, maximum pay. As much excitement as possible. He seemed to have it all.
06:25 [music – Night and Day] to 08:32
08:33: I: Now Group Captain Cheshire, you talked earlier on about having nothing to do with war, and it being abhorrent to you, and yet all of a sudden you joined the Royal Air Force.
08:41: LC: Well history changed. You see, when I said that about school, that was 1933. In summer 1938, with Munich, I had a conviction that we betrayed Czechoslovakia, and I was convinced war was coming. Everything changed. I mean your thoughts about no war had no relevance, because you realised that there could be no peace in Europe till Hitler was stopped. And so I went to Father and I said ‘I want to leave Oxford and join the Air Force’ – thinking that would get me out of my finals you see then after that I did want to join the Air Force. Father said ‘No’, and of course if he said no, that was no. But you could apply for a permanent commission called Direct Entry, and if granted, then it took effect when and if you passed your finals. So, I got accepted in 1938. It only took effect in 1939 after my exams.
09:42: I: Would you consider your promotion very rapid or just normal?
09:46: LC: Well it was very rapid, but not especially because of any merit of mine, but because I was blessed to survive. – If you survived and others didn’t, then you went up. So, I mean when I was made Station Commander and Group Captain, I had only been in the Air Force 3 ½ years.
10:03: I: When did you take command of 617 Dambusters squadron?
10:07: LC: Well that saved me from the job I didn’t like as Station Commander. I was just dying to get back on to the operational flying, ‘cos that was really all I knew, and then out of the blue I got this invitation to go and see Sir Ralph Cochrane who offered me the job of CO, 617. That was 1943 - November.
10:35: I: And you had certain techniques you wanted to perfect, did you not?
10:38: LC: Well I believed in low-level marking, a light manoeuvrable aircraft and driving straight at the target from minimum height. And we proved that under certain circumstances you could hit military targets without taking a single civilian life round it. That was our job for 6 months. And after aerial bombing, which I know sadly had to be done in the early stages of the war, that was a great relief.
11:04: I: Would you care to tell us about the Victoria Cross?
11:08: LC: Well, I received that at the end of my time with 617, when I was taken off flying (it was said for good), and it was given just as a general award for my 4 years of Bomber Command. I mean I survived; others didn’t. So, I’ve always looked upon it – yes mine in a sense – but only on behalf of others.
11:29: I: And what is your next piece of music?
11:31: LC: Here I’d like to choose something that reminds me of all the others that we … we all fought together. And by that I mean the wives and the friends and families who stayed behind. In a way it must have been worse for them. We had those scenes on the railways – saying goodbye, and I think Wish me Luck sums that up.
11:52 [music – Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye] to 12:58
12:59: I: What was the motivating force behind your desire to build the Cheshire homes?
13:05: LC: The war – the totality of the war gave me a feeling that if you’re one of the ones who survives – if it’s been given to you to survive, you ought to do something to help build a world in which it’s not going to happen again.
13:20: I: Was this something that happened like that – a flash of inspiration?
13:23: LC: No. It gradually built up in the last months of the war. You could see, that although we thought it would take another 18 months (but for the atomic bomb), you began to think ahead – I’ve now got a chance of surviving. I had this general feeling that you must do something to help build – well I can only say peace. I hope you don’t think that’s presumptuous, but the thing is: how do you do it? – You’re an ordinary individual, you’ve got no power, no position. So, I had a general desire but no outlet. And so, for a year after the war I was lost, searching. I was looking for a big crusade. – There wasn’t one. Instead, an old man dying of cancer – hospital turning him out – nowhere for him to go. I took him in – I could find nowhere else – thought it was an interlude, nursed him until he died, and then that opened the door. People came flooding in after that. First old people who were dying, then some TB’s and then young disabled people. And then I realised the great need in the end of the 1940s was somewhere for a young disabled person, who couldn’t live in his own home ‘cos of the severity of his disability, to live, in an environment which suited him. Because the only place for him was a chronic ward amongst the very old. So, you had this driving urgency to get any building you can - dilapidated or not - get them in and build a young environment. So, it wasn’t any planning of mine – it just happened. And I was sort of caught in the flow and pulled along.
15:06: I: Yes. And at what stage of all this did you meet your wife, Sue Ryder?
15:12: LC: Well, it was 1954.
15:14: I: Basically, the homes are run along the same lines – the same basis, aren’t they?
15:19: LC: She has homes that continue in care for cancer and so on, which we don’t. – We’re the young disabled people.
15:24: I: I see.
15:25: LC: So, we have the same long-term objective, but slightly different methods and immediate objectives. It’s a brother and sister organisation with a joint one, which we also have.
15:36: I: It’s now become a huge, tremendous worldwide operation, hasn’t it?
15:40: LC: Well it’s growing, yes.
15:41: I: My goodness; 200 homes all over the world, and how many – 70 something in England?
15:46: LC: Yes, we have 72 or 3 homes here, but also, we have 30 family support groups, but helping a disabled person live in his own home. In fact, we look after as many disabled people in that as we do in the homes.
16:01: I: Well your next piece of music is by the Monks of Solesmes. Tell me how strongly religion has played a part in the worldwide foundation of yours.
16:10: LC: Well it has played a fundamental part. The thing is I had no faith in God, all my life as a boy and throughout the Air Force. It was only at the end of the war I realised suddenly that God exists. A certain conversation in a bar in Mayfair, welcoming my brother back from Prisoner of War camp. And then I realised I must find a church. And I found the church for me – the Catholic Church – and that gave me a foundation on which to build. And then I used to go to Solesmes, a Benedictine monastery in France, do my retreat there, and I couldn’t get over their music – their plainsong. I was most interested that anthropologists took to some Aboriginals various forms of music, to see which they liked best, and they all chose plainsong.
17:14 [music] to 18:40
18:40: I: Now your homes exist in – I think I’m right in saying – about 45 other countries around the world. How did all this happen?
1846: LC: Again, it happened by chance. I was invited out to India and I landed in India with £100 – that’s all I had – and it grows from that – I believe in growing from small beginnings – but going out to these other countries had a profound effect on me. Again, as during the War, I learnt the interdependence of us all. This has taught me how we’re all one human family. And if there’s poverty or injustice in any part of the world, we feel it – it affects us as well as them. If I’ve ill health in my foot, my whole body’s affected. And so, I see the urgent need today of doing everything we can to help alleviate poverty and starvation and lift the poorer countries up to become economically independent. We give them political independence, but without economic independence that doesn’t mean much. And so, whilst I’m doing my own work, and that’s what I’ve put my life into, I want with all the power I’ve got to promote the need to help the poor world get up on its feet. And I think one of the marvellous things of the last few years was Bob Geldof. You saw this sea of energy and youth bubbling over with excitement – all directed to helping the poor.
20:11 [music – Feed the World] to 21:29
21:30: I: The emblem of the Cheshire homes is a red feather. Now will you please tell us how and why.
21:35: LC: Well I know it sounds most unlikely, but the Singapore home wanted a flag day, and they have a flag day every week in Singapore, and your heart drops if you get another flag day. So, I said ‘OK, we’ll call it a red feather day’. And everybody said ‘Ooh, what’s that?’. And the red feather in the Far East really is the symbol of success, prosperity, good health and so on. And the red feather just caught on, and although we never planned it, spread from country to country, and there it is.
22:07: I: Well thank you for telling me, ‘cos I didn’t know that at all. It’s a most lovely story. Well now, you’ve chosen Reveille as your last piece of music. Why?
22:17: LC: Because at this stage in my life 2 thoughts dominate me. One is the need to remember those who died in the 2 world wars – the ordeal they went through, and the other is to do something about the victims of poverty, and particularly natural disaster. And so, I’ve started – perhaps my final project – the World War Memorial Fund. Objective? To collect £5 for each of the lives lost in the 2 world wars – 80 million lives - 80 million in those 2 world wars. And to use that sum – 400 million pounds as a capital sum, the income from which goes to the victims of natural disaster. A living memorial to those who died and their gift to the victims of future disaster. I think we’re now at the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, and it’s a significant moment for those whom the ordeal of world war once divided, to join and express their solidarity with those whose ordeal is yet to come.
23:32 [music – Reveille] to 24:51
24:53: LC: May I read one of the letters that has come in? One of literally hundreds. I was born 1917 and was lucky enough to lose none of my family in either war. My £5 note is for one of the soldiers known only to God.
25:13 [music] to 25:36
25:36: I: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, Order of Merit, thank you very much indeed.
25:40 Speech ends
25:42 End of recording
End of transcription
File Title: 'The Seven Ages (Dad) 8/4/89'. Interview with founder about his life Duration: 25 mins 42 secs
Transcription date: 05/08/20
Archive Number: AV-S_261
Start of Transcription
00:00: Leonard Cheshire: At school I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. It looked such a wonderful place to explore. I mean Africa, you’ve read about Africa – I’d love to go to Africa. We knew nothing about the poverty of Africa, and I just thought sunshine, games, you know, roam about, and everything seemed beautiful, and the thought of war by contrast with this appalled me.
0028: Interviewer: Yes, of course.
0029: LC: I joined the ATC. I did everything you should do, and quite enjoyed it, but I thought well, war’s not for me. I just couldn’t understand why nations had to go to war.
0038: I: Were you an introspective kind of young man would you say?
0042: LC: I perhaps had a serious side to me. People used to … even in the Air Force people would come up to me and say ‘You know, it can’t really be as bad as all that’, and all I was aware of was just sitting there brooding or whatever, thinking. They used to say that at Oxford too.
0057: I: What did you major in at university?
0059: LC: I had no option. You see Father was Professor of Law. I mean he’d written 2 standard text books already. So, Chris and I had to read law. I was quite pleased. I mean I enjoyed law as a subject, but I didn’t think much of law as a profession. It was going to mean too much thinking.
01:19 I: And you have Old Man River to punctuate this second decade.
01:23: LC: The memory of mother. Mother played such a part in my life. She died younger than Father, so Father remained an influence later in my life. But it reminds me of Mother – those happy lovely days at prep school and home Stowe then Oxford.
01:43 [music – Old Man River] to 04:08
04:09: I: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: law, as you said earlier was not your strong point should we say at University. But you studied languages too did you not?
04:18: LC: I didn’t study them in the formal sense, but I used to go to France a lot ‘cos one of my aunts had married a Romanian and they lived in Paris. So, I learnt French from an early age, and I spoke it reasonably then, but my last term at school Father sent me away to Germany to learn German.
04:37: I: Well how long did they give you to do it in for goodness sake?
04:40: LC: I was there for about 5 months, and I learnt it almost fluently. It came naturally to me you see. But the sad thing is I never spoke it for 35 years, and so I’ve forgotten it. I can speak it; I can pronounce it, and I’d give anything to get it back, ‘cos now I’ve got reason to want to speak German and to be able to go and discuss things in German. It’s one of those sad things. You should never do that. You learn a language – don’t let it go.
05:07: I: And while you were at university you had your first taste of flying, didn’t you?
05:11: LC: Well you had to join one of the cadet corps – or whatever they called them – ATC – you know. I thought well, I’m not going to be an infantryman – that’s the last thing I want – so do something different. – I always wanted to do something different. Well, I’ll go for the cavalry. But you turned up at 7 am; there’s a corporal or sergeant who utterly balled you out, and you had to run at a horse and jump on it and somersault off it backwards, and I thought well this isn’t for me, so I’ll choose the … what’s the most sedentary thing I can find – and that was flying. I went to the air squadron. And I was very lucky because I felt at home in an aircraft – I felt safe in an aircraft. I’d have never managed on the ground as a soldier.
05:56: I: You feel it was almost second nature to you, did you?
05:57: LC: It came as second nature.
06:01: I: And what have you chosen for this period of your life (musically speaking).
06:05: Night and Day
06:06: I: Why?
06:07: LC: Well, we had the elegant Fred Astaire, and I don’t know – he symbolised what I thought I wanted out of life – a good life. Minimum work, maximum pay. As much excitement as possible. He seemed to have it all.
06:25 [music – Night and Day] to 08:32
08:33: I: Now Group Captain Cheshire, you talked earlier on about having nothing to do with war, and it being abhorrent to you, and yet all of a sudden you joined the Royal Air Force.
08:41: LC: Well history changed. You see, when I said that about school, that was 1933. In summer 1938, with Munich, I had a conviction that we betrayed Czechoslovakia, and I was convinced war was coming. Everything changed. I mean your thoughts about no war had no relevance, because you realised that there could be no peace in Europe till Hitler was stopped. And so I went to Father and I said ‘I want to leave Oxford and join the Air Force’ – thinking that would get me out of my finals you see then after that I did want to join the Air Force. Father said ‘No’, and of course if he said no, that was no. But you could apply for a permanent commission called Direct Entry, and if granted, then it took effect when and if you passed your finals. So, I got accepted in 1938. It only took effect in 1939 after my exams.
09:42: I: Would you consider your promotion very rapid or just normal?
09:46: LC: Well it was very rapid, but not especially because of any merit of mine, but because I was blessed to survive. – If you survived and others didn’t, then you went up. So, I mean when I was made Station Commander and Group Captain, I had only been in the Air Force 3 ½ years.
10:03: I: When did you take command of 617 Dambusters squadron?
10:07: LC: Well that saved me from the job I didn’t like as Station Commander. I was just dying to get back on to the operational flying, ‘cos that was really all I knew, and then out of the blue I got this invitation to go and see Sir Ralph Cochrane who offered me the job of CO, 617. That was 1943 - November.
10:35: I: And you had certain techniques you wanted to perfect, did you not?
10:38: LC: Well I believed in low-level marking, a light manoeuvrable aircraft and driving straight at the target from minimum height. And we proved that under certain circumstances you could hit military targets without taking a single civilian life round it. That was our job for 6 months. And after aerial bombing, which I know sadly had to be done in the early stages of the war, that was a great relief.
11:04: I: Would you care to tell us about the Victoria Cross?
11:08: LC: Well, I received that at the end of my time with 617, when I was taken off flying (it was said for good), and it was given just as a general award for my 4 years of Bomber Command. I mean I survived; others didn’t. So, I’ve always looked upon it – yes mine in a sense – but only on behalf of others.
11:29: I: And what is your next piece of music?
11:31: LC: Here I’d like to choose something that reminds me of all the others that we … we all fought together. And by that I mean the wives and the friends and families who stayed behind. In a way it must have been worse for them. We had those scenes on the railways – saying goodbye, and I think Wish me Luck sums that up.
11:52 [music – Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye] to 12:58
12:59: I: What was the motivating force behind your desire to build the Cheshire homes?
13:05: LC: The war – the totality of the war gave me a feeling that if you’re one of the ones who survives – if it’s been given to you to survive, you ought to do something to help build a world in which it’s not going to happen again.
13:20: I: Was this something that happened like that – a flash of inspiration?
13:23: LC: No. It gradually built up in the last months of the war. You could see, that although we thought it would take another 18 months (but for the atomic bomb), you began to think ahead – I’ve now got a chance of surviving. I had this general feeling that you must do something to help build – well I can only say peace. I hope you don’t think that’s presumptuous, but the thing is: how do you do it? – You’re an ordinary individual, you’ve got no power, no position. So, I had a general desire but no outlet. And so, for a year after the war I was lost, searching. I was looking for a big crusade. – There wasn’t one. Instead, an old man dying of cancer – hospital turning him out – nowhere for him to go. I took him in – I could find nowhere else – thought it was an interlude, nursed him until he died, and then that opened the door. People came flooding in after that. First old people who were dying, then some TB’s and then young disabled people. And then I realised the great need in the end of the 1940s was somewhere for a young disabled person, who couldn’t live in his own home ‘cos of the severity of his disability, to live, in an environment which suited him. Because the only place for him was a chronic ward amongst the very old. So, you had this driving urgency to get any building you can - dilapidated or not - get them in and build a young environment. So, it wasn’t any planning of mine – it just happened. And I was sort of caught in the flow and pulled along.
15:06: I: Yes. And at what stage of all this did you meet your wife, Sue Ryder?
15:12: LC: Well, it was 1954.
15:14: I: Basically, the homes are run along the same lines – the same basis, aren’t they?
15:19: LC: She has homes that continue in care for cancer and so on, which we don’t. – We’re the young disabled people.
15:24: I: I see.
15:25: LC: So, we have the same long-term objective, but slightly different methods and immediate objectives. It’s a brother and sister organisation with a joint one, which we also have.
15:36: I: It’s now become a huge, tremendous worldwide operation, hasn’t it?
15:40: LC: Well it’s growing, yes.
15:41: I: My goodness; 200 homes all over the world, and how many – 70 something in England?
15:46: LC: Yes, we have 72 or 3 homes here, but also, we have 30 family support groups, but helping a disabled person live in his own home. In fact, we look after as many disabled people in that as we do in the homes.
16:01: I: Well your next piece of music is by the Monks of Solesmes. Tell me how strongly religion has played a part in the worldwide foundation of yours.
16:10: LC: Well it has played a fundamental part. The thing is I had no faith in God, all my life as a boy and throughout the Air Force. It was only at the end of the war I realised suddenly that God exists. A certain conversation in a bar in Mayfair, welcoming my brother back from Prisoner of War camp. And then I realised I must find a church. And I found the church for me – the Catholic Church – and that gave me a foundation on which to build. And then I used to go to Solesmes, a Benedictine monastery in France, do my retreat there, and I couldn’t get over their music – their plainsong. I was most interested that anthropologists took to some Aboriginals various forms of music, to see which they liked best, and they all chose plainsong.
17:14 [music] to 18:40
18:40: I: Now your homes exist in – I think I’m right in saying – about 45 other countries around the world. How did all this happen?
1846: LC: Again, it happened by chance. I was invited out to India and I landed in India with £100 – that’s all I had – and it grows from that – I believe in growing from small beginnings – but going out to these other countries had a profound effect on me. Again, as during the War, I learnt the interdependence of us all. This has taught me how we’re all one human family. And if there’s poverty or injustice in any part of the world, we feel it – it affects us as well as them. If I’ve ill health in my foot, my whole body’s affected. And so, I see the urgent need today of doing everything we can to help alleviate poverty and starvation and lift the poorer countries up to become economically independent. We give them political independence, but without economic independence that doesn’t mean much. And so, whilst I’m doing my own work, and that’s what I’ve put my life into, I want with all the power I’ve got to promote the need to help the poor world get up on its feet. And I think one of the marvellous things of the last few years was Bob Geldof. You saw this sea of energy and youth bubbling over with excitement – all directed to helping the poor.
20:11 [music – Feed the World] to 21:29
21:30: I: The emblem of the Cheshire homes is a red feather. Now will you please tell us how and why.
21:35: LC: Well I know it sounds most unlikely, but the Singapore home wanted a flag day, and they have a flag day every week in Singapore, and your heart drops if you get another flag day. So, I said ‘OK, we’ll call it a red feather day’. And everybody said ‘Ooh, what’s that?’. And the red feather in the Far East really is the symbol of success, prosperity, good health and so on. And the red feather just caught on, and although we never planned it, spread from country to country, and there it is.
22:07: I: Well thank you for telling me, ‘cos I didn’t know that at all. It’s a most lovely story. Well now, you’ve chosen Reveille as your last piece of music. Why?
22:17: LC: Because at this stage in my life 2 thoughts dominate me. One is the need to remember those who died in the 2 world wars – the ordeal they went through, and the other is to do something about the victims of poverty, and particularly natural disaster. And so, I’ve started – perhaps my final project – the World War Memorial Fund. Objective? To collect £5 for each of the lives lost in the 2 world wars – 80 million lives - 80 million in those 2 world wars. And to use that sum – 400 million pounds as a capital sum, the income from which goes to the victims of natural disaster. A living memorial to those who died and their gift to the victims of future disaster. I think we’re now at the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, and it’s a significant moment for those whom the ordeal of world war once divided, to join and express their solidarity with those whose ordeal is yet to come.
23:32 [music – Reveille] to 24:51
24:53: LC: May I read one of the letters that has come in? One of literally hundreds. I was born 1917 and was lucky enough to lose none of my family in either war. My £5 note is for one of the soldiers known only to God.
25:13 [music] to 25:36
25:36: I: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, Order of Merit, thank you very much indeed.
25:40 Speech ends
25:42 End of recording
End of transcription
Collection
Citation
G L Cheshire, “'The Seven Ages' - Interview with founder about his life ,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 23, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/40176.
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