Video of WW2 Event at Chorlton Good Neighbours

Video of WW2 Event at Chorlton Good Neighbours, Feb 7th 2013

A video of the World War 2 Event at Chorlton Good Neighbours, celebrating 4 local WW2 veterans. The video show the build up to the event and the presentations to the two arctic convoy veterans, Bob Cowan & John Mackay, In addition,  Mickie Mitchell the petrol lorry driver and Alan Wood the fighter pilot, were also honoured at this event

Full versions of the videos shown at the event can be viewed online at:

Alan Wood: Fighter Pilot with coastal command, Banff Strike wing

Mickie Mitchell: She served in the army and then the Fire Service in Manchester during the blitz

John Mackay is another Arctic Convoy veteran who lives in Chorlton. Here is a video where he talks about his experiences on HMS Keppel in the Arctic Convoys

Bob Cowan: the World War Two Arctic Convoys and the Chorlton Good Neighbours campaign to get the British Government to allow veterans like Bob to received the medal of Ushakov from the Russian Government

Photos of WW2 Veterans Event, Feb 7th 2013

Photogallery of the event celebrating our Word War Two veterans  held on Feb 7th 2013 at Chorlton Good Neighbours.

Thanks to Carolyn O'Hanlon for the photos

Chorlton's Arctic Convoy veterans on Granada TV

Granada TV Tribute to Chorlton Good Neighbour's  World War 2 veterans

Local TV broadcast a short video of the event held on Feb7th at the Good Neighbours History Group meeting . Paul Crone of Granada TV interviewed the two Arctic Convoy veterans present - Chorlton Good Neighbours regular, Bob Cowan and John Mackay who we recently found out lived just down the road from Bob, but the two had never previously met

Report by Paul Crone

John Mackay and Bob Cowan talking to each other at the event

Some of the audience at the meeting

Bob Cowan & WW2 Arctic Convoys

Bob Cowan and the World War Two Arctic Convoys

Bob Cowan, 93, and his wife Joyce are regulars at Chorlton Good Neighbours coffee mornings. One day last year he came in with a letter from the Russian Embassy in London, telling him they wanted to award him and other veterans the medal of Ushakov in recognition of their role in supporting Russian through their participation in the WW2 Arctic Convoys.

I followed this up and eventually found out from the Russian embassy that they were being prevented from giving the medal by the UK government because it was against the rules. We then mounted a campaign to get the government to change its mind and allow the awarding of the medal. This resulted in a front page article in the Manchester Evening News, articles in the Daily Mail and an interview on Granada Reports



The wider campaign to have an Arctic Convoy medal issued by the UK government gathered momentum because of this story and eventually the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced in PM Questions just before Christmas 2012, that such a medal would be awarded. However, the medal of Ushakov can still not be awarded and the fight to allow the Russian Government to award this still goes on

[youtube=http://youtu.be/23s0BywHGzg]

The  video above includes descriptions by Bob of what it was like to be in the Arctic Convoys and to have been rescued from the water after being on a ship (HMS Mashona) that was sunk. He also describes his experiences on the Malta convoys. Bob went on to serve in the Pacific campaign, to have been present at the surrender of Japan and to have walked through Hiroshima shortly after the Atomic Bomb.

The campaign to have the Arctic Convoy veterans contribution to the defence of this country in WWs is described in a clip from his interview with Granada TV in October 2013. This campaign which was supported and promoted by Bob's friends at Chorlton Good Neighbours, was successful when the Prime Minister in PM Questions Time in December 2013, announced the awarding of an Arctic Convoy medal for the remaining veterans

Bob Cowan, 4^th from right, with shipmates onboard the HMS Ashanti off Iceland, 1942

Mickie Mitchell in WW2

Mickie Mitchell in WW2

Mickie Mitchell from Chorlton , now aged 95, and a regular at Chorlton Good Neighbours served in the army and then the Fire Service in Manchester during the second world war. Here she talks about her growing up in Manchester and the Moravian settlement in Fulneck, Leeds (where a fellow pupil was Leonard Hutton, the cricketer).

She then goes on to recount her time in the fire service in Manchester during the air raids over the city and at Salford docks

Mickie driving a lorry during the war

Mickie in uniform at sea

Bob Cowan and the Arctic Convoy medal

Granada Reports interviews Good Neighbours user, Bob Cowan, a WW2 Arctic Convoy veteran, following a campaign by Chorlton Good Neighbours to get the UK government to allow him to receive a Russian medal in recognition of his wartime service