Alison Bennett

My constituent and resident of Burgess Hill, Able Seaman George Chandler, was due to lead the blind veterans at the remembrance parade on Remembrance Sunday the weekend after next. Sadly, George died earlier this month. He was 99 years old. I never had the privilege of meeting George, but I have been able to speak to his son Paul, who gave me a wonderful insight into his father. He was full of character and, in Paul’s words, an old rogue. George was born to a working-class family off the Old Kent Road. When war was declared, aged 14 George stayed in London—he was not evacuated—and experienced the blitz in all its horror. His father, Will, had been a soldier at the Somme, and George was determined that he would not be what he called one of the “poor bloody infantry”. He was not going to go into the Army. When he was still 17, he pestered and pestered the recruiters at the naval office to sign him up. Eventually, they took him on, even though he had not yet reached his 18th birthday. George saw active service in the channel as a gunner on a boat, with close combat with the Germans occurring very frequently. On D-day, he provided cover for American troops landing on Omaha beach, watching the slaughter before his eyes. He returned from the D-day landings to Newhaven in East Sussex, and saw rows and rows of empty coffins waiting for the dead. This year, George was one of a handful of remaining veterans who took part in the 80th anniversary commemorations. He went to No. 10 Downing Street, HMS Belfast and the trooping of the colour. This caused George’s family a certain amount of consternation, for George was not a Conservative. His family were terribly worried about what George might say when he met Government Ministers. They had a plan that if George let rip, they would whisk him away in his wheelchair before any embarrassment could be caused. I am pleased to say to Conservative Members that he met Gillian Keegan, Grant Shapps and the former Prime Minister’s wife, and no event occurred. I asked Paul what George’s messages to the House would be, and the answer—what Paul thought his dad would have said—was characteristically robust. He was passionate about remembering his shipmates, those who gave their tomorrow for our today. He stayed in contact throughout his life with the daughter—