Category Archives: Normandy Trips

Normandy June 2014 – Day#11 Monday 9th June

Menhir hunting We had decided, as it was also the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War to pick up a few key sites on our way home… but first we went even further back in time to satisfy Glyn’s attachment to strange lumps of rock plonked in the countryside by our […]

Normandy June 2014 – Day#10 Sunday 8th June

Mullberies Sunday saw us begin our winding way homeward. For a change, we decided to head north towards the beaches & one of the first sea-born sights to greet us was the remaining pieces of the Mulberry Harbours; an amazing feat of engineering born of the realisation that it would take time for the invasion […]

Normandy June 2014 – Day#08 Friday 6th June

Stand in battlefield tour guide Earlier in the week, I’d received a phone call from Eain Findlay to say that he and his father, Muir, wouldn’t be able to make the trip this year as he’d put his back out. Eain was happy to drive munching on painkillers, but somehow, Muir was less happy with […]

Normandy June 2014 – Day#04 Monday 2nd June

German Military Cemetery at Marigny Initially, we’d planned to use this day checking out again Ray Elledge’s crash site where we would have dug up some of the metal. However, as this had now been confirmed as not a crash site, we decided to do something different and decided to head off to Coutances as […]

Normandy 2014 – Day#01 Friday 30th May

Pubs and brewpubs – that’s a different start for us… not! We started off and first went to Banbury where we had lunch in a Hook Norton pub – The Roebuck. Hook Norton being a brewery that neither Glyn nor I had had beers from for a long time. We then continued to Aylesbury, and […]

Normandy 2013 – Day#12 Wednesday 12th June

And so to home… via a brewpub, naturally! An earlyish breakfast saw us off to fill up with some presents & fuel at the local supermarket before heading back to the Chunnel. Whilst, in some ways, we’d not added as much to the tale of “The Men in the Shed” on this trip, we had, perhaps, […]

Normandy 2013 – Day#11 Tuesday 11th June

A medal, a Beach, a Band of Brothers and Azeville Battery’s painted bunkers An eclectic day finished off our last full day in France. As we were right on UTAH breach, I decided to go and take some photos as well as taking a jar full of sand I know it is wrong and if […]

Normandy 2013 – Day#10 Monday 10th June

A PoW’s  journey You’ll recall that last year we met Bill Sullivan & his wife, Elizabeth, who, whilst not one of the “MenInTheShed”, gave me (via Morris Sheppard’s son, Jim) lots of information of the time when he was “on the run” with Morris, allowing us to re-find the places they’d been, I was proud to […]

Normandy 2013 – Day#9 Sunday 9th June

Tilly Book Fair and balloons Tilly Book Fair The “Salon du Livre de la Battaille de Normandie” or “Tilly Book Fair of the Battle of Normandy” is now in it’s fifth year. The “brainchild” of the Tilly 1944 Association and in particular the curator of the museum at Tilly sur Seulles  – Stéphane Jacquet – […]

Normandy 2013 – Day#8 Saturday 8th June

Presentations and P47s in Normandy With Peter Findlay So, as is usual on these trips, we got up in the morning & immediately amended the plans that we had for the day! The reason for this was that Peter Findlay, one of our hosts, was being honoured with the presentation of a medal from the […]