The monthly Coffee Morning of Sarum U3A was held in our usual venue of St Francis Church Hall on Wednesday 15 August. Members not on email collected their monthly Newsletter which contained information about the Joint Outings to the Welsh National Opera, a visit to the Millennium Centre at Cardiff Bay and a visit to the Tutankhamun Exhibition at Greenwich. Information was given out on the activities of groups including:- the Gardening, Walking, Delicious and Easy and Sunday Lunch groups. Our speakers, Sandra and Roger Downton, who were speaking on their trip “In the Wake of the Cockleshell Heroes” started their talk with a clip from a TV interview they did while preparing for their trip up the Gironde River in France following in the footsteps of the men in WW2 whose aim was to blow up enemy shipping in the port of Bordeaux. The Downtons gave us an idea of the bravery of the men (only 2 out of the 10 who took part survived to come home). Their expedition followed that of the so called “Cockleshell Heroes” and they paddled up the Gironde from the Bay of Biscay in their canoe, “The Sardine”. We heard about the dangers faced by both expeditions and of the success of the “Heroes” in sinking 3 cargo ships, a destroyer and also doing a great deal of damage - not to mention creating a time-consuming, expensive nuisance to the Germans who had thereafter to increase patrols. The operation is calculated to have shortened the war by about 6 months. On their return Sandra and Roger Downton were persuaded to write a book about their expedition as a tribute to the brave men who took part in the raid. Peter Tee gave the vote of thanks and members were pleased afterwards to look at an impressive collection of photographs and memorabilia. The next meeting is on Wednesday 19 September
at our usual venue when |
