Farewell Wally

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Wally Burns was given a great send-off at St Michael's church this afternoon. There were over 150 people present - family and friends, Cathays neighbours, church members, former Cardiff Bus Company colleagues, and Burma Star Association members, who formed a guard of honour with the Association's flag. All the circles of community life that were part of his life paying him tribute. The service concluded with the Kohima epitaph, Last Post and Reveille, played on a bugle. It was the kind of occasion he would have approved of for others, and in a way it was strange that he was not there to oversee the event, to make sure in his warm and easy going way, that all was being done decently and in order. I was happy just to sit at the back, there being no reason for me to take part in its conduct, with Burma Star Branch Chaplain, Bill Barlow on parade with Caroline Downs, Wally's Vicar, and fellow West Midlander - she used to tease him in her broadest Black Country accent (although she's from Coventry), and he loved it. Who will take over at caretaker of St Michael's? Who will take on the secretariat of the Burma Star Branch? Everyone is wondering. It's not longer quite to easy to find good people who will take on such tasks and give so much to them. May he rest in peace.

Untimely passing of a war veteran

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I had a phone call this morning at 8.20am to tell me that Wally Burns died last night.

He'd been unwell for ages with broncho-emphysemia, but that didn't stop him playing his usual role of organising the Burma Star veterans' annual get-together. I sat next to him at lunch on Sunday, and he was so disconsolate at the loss of his wife Phyllis's handbag, that he hardly ate a thing. Apparently, his condition deteriorated despite medical intervention over the two following days, although he did not take to his bed, but carried on, taking his time, getting around the house as best he could. He even gave an interview about the theft to the Echo the day of his death. In the end he struggled from the bathroom at bed-time, got into bed and simply died there. He wasn't the kind of person to give up. He just carried on to his last breath, a true old soldier, and mainstay of St Michael's Church and the old Cathays community. Maybe the shock hastened his end. Maybe it was sheer shame and sorrow at the defilement of a church by conscienceless thieves.

When I visited Phyl, she was obviously sad, still waiting for the impact of his death to hit her, but also expressing her gratitude for the sixty one years of their marriage. Many of her contemporaries have been widowed for a decade or so. Many more were widowed in the same war from which Wally emerged as a survivor from one of its harshest campaigns. That's something his offspring, down to his great grandchildren, will not forget.