An extraordinary day!

It has been an extraordinary day and one that I want to share with my blip buddies.  A couple of days ago, the 4th of December to be exact, I reached out to Alsacienne as she had published a wonderful extra image of a market stall in the Alsace.  I had been meaning to ask her for a long time as to whether she was familiar with the village of Holtzwhir in the Alsace.  If you read this story about the Lancaster PB765 you will understand why I was asking Alsacienne the question.  I was astonished when a comment came straight back that in fact she would be only 5 minutes away from the village that afternoon.  I asked her if she could possibly take a photograph of the plaque on the wall of the Town Hall in Holtzwhir which honours the crew of the Lancaster PB765 as my dad George Wall was the pilot of the ill fated plane.  Now I'm not going to spoil her wonderful story of what transpired when she managed to visit Holtzwhir by repeating it here, but I am going to URGE YOU to go to her journal of the 6th of December "Serendipity" and follow the links within her post.  It is a wonderful, wonderful tale.  The link to the additional images is also definitely worth viewing.

The irony of this story for me is that the day I posed my question to Alsacienne was in fact the 73rd Anniversary of the day the Lancaster crashed in the woods outside the village of Holtzwhir.  My main image tonight I have scanned from my photo album.  It was taken on the 27th of January 2005 at the memorial at the site where Dad's plane crashed.  I am standing with Roy Hill, Dad's wireless operator and we are flanked by Joseph and Patrick, the two young Frenchmen who were determined to find if there were any survivors from PB765.  I was there to represent my wonderful Dad at the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of the village.  The village was liberated only 54 days after the Lancaster crashed.  I have posted an extra image that I took tonight of the very precious salver that I accepted on behalf of the Mayor and the village of Holtzwhir for my family and the little vase was a vase my mum and dad brought in Holtzwhir on one of their visits back to the village.  I know they both treasured it. 

The village of Holtzwhir holds a special place in our hearts and we always refer to our friends there as our "French Family".  The fact that Alsacienne would take the time out to follow up for me like that was quite incredible and it says so much about the community that we love, the blipfoto community.   I can't thank my blip friend enough for her special gift.