I HAVE been watching the news about the Lancaster Bombers Memorial and it has triggered a few memories for me.

I am particularly surprised to learn that we, “Great Britain”, have played down the role that our courageous airmen filled in the Second World War.

I was born just before the war and spent my childhood and youth in East London throughout the war. I saw the results of V1, V2, German bombers, etc, as a child and to me it was normal life.

Many thousands of Londoners were killed in these attacks. How can we possibility be embarrassed because we did the same to Dresden and accelerated the end of the fighting? I came to Bolton in 1973 to teach engineering at Bolton Institute of Technology.

During my time there, I met hundreds of people, one of whom was a mathematics lecturer Stan Simpson. Sometime later, when I had been promoted to vice-principal of BIHE, I bumped into Stan in the corridor.

I asked him how he was doing and he told me that he had cancer which he knew was incurable. He was still teaching and I said it must be very difficult for him.

He looked me in the eye and said that in the Second World War he had been a navigator with the Lancaster flight teams bombing Germany.

He said: “That was scary and, in comparison, incurable cancer is a doddle.”

How could we have ignored for so long these young people who gave their lives so that 70 years later we and our families can enjoy life as we do?

Thanks Stan!

Wilf Gardner Dene Bank Bradshaw