The creation of his second book felt like a Mission Impossible for Salford resident, Gary Bridson-Daley. Facing setbacks, including the pandemic, it took Gary more than five years to publish his PHD thesis-size, mine of captured World War Two memories to honour the brave Servicemen and Women from the ‘Greatest Generation’.
His second book ‘The Last Stand: Memories of War’ which was self-published on May 11, is a 400 page collection of 196,140 words and more than 200 images and illustrations with WWII servicemen and women from a variety of countries and backgrounds. The book was created whilst Gary worked 40-50 hours a week as a Security Guard in a local school.
Part of Gary’s ‘Debt of Gratitude project’, which aims to honour the sacrifice of World War Two veterans, the two books and hundreds of hours of travel to collate these stories have cost Gary nearly £10,000 of his life-savings.
He explained: “The book has been ready for quite some time, but with issues with the pandemic and publishing houses, I learnt all the self-publishing route and did it all. I’ve learnt the other side of the industry.
“As I promised everyone in the book, their stories will be heard. Some have passed away, but families can be proud. Everything I do is for veterans, it’s about veterans, and it’s to honour veterans, because to remember is to honour. That’s my mantra.”
Following on from his previous book ‘The Last Heroes: Voices of British and Commonwealth Veterans’, his new book features a section dedicated to the veteran our former Queen Elizabeth II, interviews with Dame Vera Lynn, and service people from all over the UK, including Salford, as well as those came from other places around the world.
The book features a dedicated section for Holocaust survivors, one interviewee of which survived nine concentration camps.
He has also captured the stories of veterans from West Indian Jamaican background, Polish, Canadian, Nepalese Gurkha, Sikh Indians, people of a Muslim background, and Jewish veterans.
Gary shared how one family, whose father served in three Navies in WWII and just after during the partition of the Indian Continent and was included in the book, invited him round for dinner and expressed their thanks.
Gary explained: “The gentleman’s three daughters, fifteen grandchildren, and 30 great-grandchildren invited me and the daughters cooked me a traditional Asian meal, during which a number of that lovely and very big family came to say hi and thank you. They were so happy that their relative had been featured in the book, we even did a personal book signing.
“One of the gentleman there had flown from Denver, Colorado, to visit the UK and came to see me whilst he was here.”
Yesterday (Sunday) saw Gary attend at a special veterans meeting of Borough of Bury Veterans Association (B.O.B.V.A). The author presented a copy of his book to 100-year-old WW2 RAF Coastal Command veteran Robert Walsh who is featured in the book.
Living on Walnut Street in Lower Broughton during the war and during the Blitz, the roof of Robert’s house was blown off and other houses in the street hit during the Nazi air raids. He later served King and country, and moved to Whitefield later in life.
Gary continued: “I’ve been capturing these stories and the families find it fascinating. They have been gobsmacked for example about their dad who’s been in their life, the stuff that he’s been through, and seen and experienced and had happened to him that they’ve never even known about.
“They’re [the veterans] are of that generation that are very humble. These people are from a generation where they serve King and country, it was expected of them, they got on with it, then they came back, went back to a normal life and just got on with that too. They have a different mindset. So for them, it was never in their mind to be in a book. So finally, in their latter years to have that happen, it’s wonderful for them as well.”
Gary has kept his ‘Debt of Gratitude’ GoFundMe open, with the hopes that further donations can help him continue his project in the future.
Copies of ‘The Last Stand: Memories of War’ are in Salford Libraries, the Salford Local History Library at the University of Salford.
‘The Last Heroes: Voices of British and Commonwealth Veterans’ and ‘The Last Stand: Memories of War’ can be found on Amazon.
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