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TWO benches to help remember those who gave their lives to protect our freedom have been installed in a community.

TWO benches to help remember those who gave their lives to protect our freedom have been installed in a community.

IT’S just over 75 years since the Second World War ended. But folk living in the occupied countries who struggled through the horrors of those days still remember the debt of gratitude they owed to the Allied forces who liberated them. Marleen Jennissen wasn’t born till 1954 but she learned all about the relentless oppression families such as hers had to endure for five long years. After the war her father Joep tried to arrange the excavation of an RAF Short Stirling bomber which had crashed on the night of September 10, 1942, in marshland close to Lilbosh Abbey, a community of monk...

They scoop up debris and wipe what they can, restoring graves covered in dirt, leaves and cracks.  Remembrance Army CEO Simon Strombom says many graves are well overdue for a cleanup.  "A lot of them in the 1920s or 1930s have no paint on them so they've never been touched in 100 years." Despite the work they do, getting into public cemeteries can be a challenge for the Remembrance Army. Some councils require permission from families of the dead before grave sites can be restored or cleaned. That permission is often hard to get - so they want a War Graves Commission established to make the ...