Remembrance Day: War veterans in care homes recall missions into 'hostile territory'

Veterans living in care homes have recounted their experiences of conflict in a short Remembrance film called ‘Conflict Never Stops’.

The care home group Royal Star & Garter filmed residents, who had served their country, telling their stories of war and conflict.

Royal Star & Garter gives support to veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia in care homes in Solihull, Surbiton and High Wycombe. The Conflict Never Stops film features residents from all three of its homes.

Peter Lewis was a pilot serving in the 1950s until 1973.

Mr Lewis said: “I was a low-level reconnaissance pilot. So that meant deep penetration into hostile territory to take a photograph.

“I was posted out to Aden [in Yemen] and from Aden flew all over Arabia really.”

Mr Lewis’ risky flights soon earned him the affectionate nickname ‘Prussian Pete’.

The remembrance video starts with Florence Mahoney who tells the camera: “When I was 19 the government decided to take all single women out of office work and put them into factories to make munitions.

“And there was no way I was going to go into a factory. I went up to the Air Force and said ‘I want to join up’.“

She became a Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) member in 1942-1946. WAAFs were part of the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II.

They did not serve as air crew but did tasks like working with radar, codes and ciphers, aircraft maintenance, transport, analysis of reconnaissance photographs etc.

Florence Mahoney said with so many people losing their lives in bomb attacks in Britain or by fighting overseas: ”If we don’t remember it, we’re more likely to have another war.”

Armistice Day is on Thursday 11 November – the date the ceasefire was signed in 1918 which signalled the end of WWI. This year Remembrance Sunday falls on 14 November.

Stephen Vause, who also features in the short Remembrance film, served as a rifleman from 2006 to 2009, and currently lives at Royal Star & Garter in Surbiton.

He was 19 and serving on his first tour of Iraq in 2007, when a mortar explosion near Basra left him with brain injuries and fighting for his life.

Mr Vause has been living at the care home since 2017, where he receives round-the-clock specialist care and benefits from one-to-one physiotherapy two to three times a week.

The charity Royal Star & Garter has said it wants to double the number of veterans it cares for by 2025. At the end of the video, the charity states: ‘Please support us however you can'.

click here for more details or to contact Royal Star & Garter