Your memories ... of life in the services (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)
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Your memories ... of life in the services
3:31pm Thursday 30th June 2011 in Nostalgia
National Serviceman Pete Hawke shows his athletic prowess by diving for the ball on a beach in Cyprus, one of the many photographs taken by Terry Buchanan during the 1950s
The photograph of the three lads, published on June 2, brought back memories for former Army public relations photographer Terry Buchanan.
Mr Buchanan, of Willowbank, Chippenham, was in Cyprus during the EOKA uprising in 1955-1959 where his job was to take photographs of soldiers for ‘local boy’ stories to be published in local newspapers.
He writes: “The most distressing action for me was after I had spent a great day laughing and joking, like lads do, with two young military police, photographing them for their local paper: was to hear that the next day they had been shot.
“Their last words to me were, ‘can we have copies of the photographs for our mums?’ – but I was ordered to destroy the negatives.
“I kept the prints, hoping to fulfill my promise, but those prints were confiscated at Nicosia airport as I went to return to the UK.
“Not being able to give those mums very happy photographs of their sons on their last full day of life has always been my greatest regret, because, it was also part of my duties to photograph military funerals for the War Graves Commission.
“How I wish that repatriation happened in those days, in foreign soil they rest alone.”
If you have memories to share, contact Diana Deal at ddeal@gazetteandherald.co.uk
