John Buckingham’s cousin Roy, was a pilot with the RAF during the war. He was a brave man and had an interesting flying career which included helping spies and dropping supplies for the Resistance workers in France and Norway. He was in the Moonlight Squadron flying mostly at night. Like John’s father, Roy Buckingham was born in Railway Cottages on Holywell Hill. This is his tale remembered by John.
Interview date: 30 January 2011. Interviewer: Sandy Norman
Roy wrote a poem to his mother which reflected his experiences which was read out at his funeral in December 2012.
Although an ocean doth divide
And keep me from your loving side
I know your love is ever near
Protecting me from every fear
For though in foreign lands I roam,
My heart is really always home,
And though I fly o’er wind-swept plains,
I long to see those English lanes
Anew and blooming in the Spring
In England where the thrushes sing.
Those lands of mine I know so well
Those woods where grows the sweet bluebell,
Those fields so old yet ever new,
That home where I in boyhood grew,
That quaint old church upon the hill,
That river and the water mill,
They’re English ’neath an English sky,
They’re yours, and mine, until we die
So though I’m far across the sea
That England’s still a part of me.
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