Welcome to the Stockport
NVa Legacy website.
This June it will be 80 years since D Day – the largest invasion that has ever taken place by sea, land and air – when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to defeat Nazi Germany. Those who took part were ordinary people doing something extraordinary, and the French people they liberated have never forgotten that debt.
Stockport Normandy Veteran Association (NVA) was made up of those ordinary men and women who returned home to play an active part in community life. Although all those veterans have now passed, the Stockport NVA Legacy group – the children of those veterans and Friend members – will be bringing the commemorations in France to the people of Stockport to honour those who fought and died for freedom.
Over 5 days in June, the group will visit the 5 Landing Beaches and send live images alongside telling the stories of those who fought – with archive recordings of those who made that history.
Follow the pilgrimage of our Stockport group on YouTube from 4th – 8th June. Find it on https://www.facebook.com/StockportMBC/ and on this website.
4th June – American Beaches of Omaha & Utah
5th June – Sword Beach – British Landing Beach
On 6th June at 3.00 pm join us in Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery as we link up with members in Normandy for a short and personal service of Remembrance
Stream Video below:
7TH JUNE – GOLD BEACH – BRITISH LANDING BEACH
8th June – Juno Beach – Canadian Landing Beach
This site contains personal accounts of World War II veterans and World War II school children from Stockport and the surrounding area.
In December 2022 our last WW2 veteran passed away. He had reached his 100th birthday in October which was his personal goal. He used to say that he never scored 100 runs playing cricket, but he was determined to be 100 years old not out. Well he did that.
He will be missed. Our last Veteran – the last man standing – has now stood down. Rest in Peace all our Stockport Normandy Veterans.
With the loss of our last veteran, it has been time to discuss the future of the group. Over recent years our veteran members were keen to promote Remembrance and Education. As a group we are blessed with active WW2 schoolchildren (their stories are on the Home Front section of the website) who are accompanied into schools by the children of NVA members who are able to tell first hand stories and show artefacts of their parents. This is how we continue to fulfil the wishes of our departed members and keep our links with the NVA. We now operate as Stockport NVA Legacy.
The journey has been enjoyable and well-worth making
Legacy of Stockport Normandy Veterans
Over recent years we made the commitment that we would continue to ‘last man standing’. As the march of time has taken our veterans from us we have moved into a new stage – Stockport NVA Legacy. As a Legacy Team we go into all schools in the Stockport area. Supported by Stockport Education Advisers, it involves primary schools with a focus on Remembrance in November and an essay competition for History students at Key Stage 3. This essay competition was launched in June in 2019, to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Normandy Campaign, and has been rolled out to schools from September 2019, appropriately commemorating the start of ‘The People’s War’ 80 years ago. We’re going to make a big push for the 80th commemoration of the Normandy Landings in June 2024.
For details of the Year 9 competition, access the Secondary Schools section of this website.
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