Legion celebrates 70th anniversary with launch of Veterans’ video

Two celebrations were held here recently.

One was the 70th anniversary of the Arthur Lions Club and the launch of the DVD Memories of World War 2. Early memories included the club’s War and Victory Bond campaign.

During the war, it sent par­cels to local ser­viceman and even adopted a British orphan, whose father was killed in North Africa and mother was killed in a bombing of London. The first local casualty, apparently, was an Arthur Lion.

A large crowd was at the launch of Memories of World War 2, which featured interviews with 10 veterans.

Many shared their memories, from Norm Padley’s comment “What did we do to win the war? We won, that’s what we did – we won.” Olive Bell told what might have happened if the war had been lost.

The four-hour DVD is di­v­id­ed into four sections to allow for research. The DVD, a project of Arthur and Area His­torical Society, was edited by Devan Becker and David Stack.

The narrator is Wellington Heights Secondary School history teacher Ian Turner and student co-ordinator of the video is Leanne Wright. The DVD will be distributed free to schools, libraries, and veterans. It  was sponsored by the society with help from Wellington North.

Turner said 100 residents attended, including ten veter­ans and two war brid­es, in addi­tion to  councillors, and members of the local Legion, Lions Club, and the Historical Society.

He said organizers believe it was important to do something to preserve the memories now.

“While Arthur can justify its claim as Canada’s most patriotic village, in a few years there will be no veterans left,” Turner said.

Turner believes that a few of the veterans who did take part in the project would not be able to do so today. He added this is something affecting every community

“This will be the last generation of kids who will be able to see our World War II veterans in person.”

 

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