POETRY AND PORTRAITS – SALUTING OUR SECOND WORLD WAR GENERATION

Review by Steve Cooke

Gary Bridson-Daley started his Debt of Gratitude Project in 2014 to honour a quickly disappearing generation to who we owe so much. The generation who served in and went through the Second World War. Gary has dedicated his time to spending time with them capturing their incredibly important personal historical testimonies .

Poetry and Portraits is a fitting, moving and highly readable tribute filled with images and service information of sixty WW2 Veterans three of which are special tributes to former Commanders and Leaders such as Winston Churchill plus 25 of Gary’s moving and celebratory poems.

This wonderful tribute is the third in Gary’s series – the previous two being A Debt of Gratitude to the Last Heroes and The Last Stand – Memories of War.

Poetry and Portraits is a valuable contribution to the history of WW2 told through the most important of primary sources – the people who were there. Many of these recollections are told for the very first time – without Gary’s efforts they would have been lost forever – never to be told.

Gary set out to ‘preserve for posterity and in perpetuity in order to create a legacy’ – this he has not only achieved by has created an emotional, life-affirming celebratory body of work that should be read by young and old alike.

To quote from Gary’s poem The Eternal Legacy “Don’t let their sacrifices be lost. Like tears in the rain. Keep their Eternal Legacy alive. By remembering them again and again”.

We can help keep their legacy alive by buying a copy of this wonderful book.

£20 from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poetry-Portraits-Saluting-Second-Generation/