Shropshire Remembrance Day parade speech veteran 'sacked'

The veteran Shropshire peace campaigner has been dropped from reading the traditional poem remembering the fallen at this year's event in Wellington, Telford, after causing offence among members of the Royal British Legion with his comments last year.

"I've just had the sack," said Mr Evans, a soldier who fought in the Normandy campaign who has read the poem every year for the last 25 years.

"I'm rather puzzled. I still don't know who I offended, and what I said that offended them. I have no intention of upsetting anybody. I'm a pacifist, and pacifism isn't supposed to upset people.

"Nobody is telling me what I have said which caused offence."

Last year he included a short poem of his own, called The Lesson, in which he spoke of remembering his friends and also his enemies.

The Lesson includes the lines: "I remember my friends and my enemies too. We all did our duty for our countries. We all obeyed our orders, Then we murdered each other. Isn't war stupid?"

George, who was behind the creation of the peace garden in Wellington, has previously caused controversy with his revelation that he became a pacifist while on the front line and witnessing the carnage first hand. He thereafter vowed not to kill any more people, instead secretly shooting to miss.

His marching orders came at an organisational meeting of the various parties involved in this year's remembrance parade in Wellington in November, which is a Wellington Royal British Legion event.

Representing the legion in the absence of her husband, the branch chairman who was unable to attend, was Catherine Wyld, who said: "The remembrance parade is held by the legion and many, many people were offended by what he said last year. He keeps going on about peace and that we don't want peace – but we do want peace.

"The legion's role is to help those who have fought in war and any veterans who have had any problems. We remember those who fought in war, not just those in this country by the way, but those all over the world.

"No offence to the lad, but we legion members in Wellington think George has had his time. He won't stick to the script in the remembrance parade. He wants to say what he wants to say about peace, but the remembrance parade is the wrong time and the wrong place. People haven't gone there for that."

On behalf of the legion, she asked George at the meeting to step down from the Sunday remembrance parade role, but offered him the alternative of reading at the remembrance event on the Wednesday in the town's market square – so long as he stuck to the script.

"He wouldn't. He said no, and, 'If I've got something to say, I've got to say it'."

She said that contrary to reports at the time, George's comments last year were not received with sustained applause.

"Most of the people there were horrified. We always have something to eat and drink afterwards in the pub and people were coming in and saying how horrified they were.

"Legion members were angry last year because of what he said and were saying they didn't want him to do the epitaph.

"George feels we have sacked him, but it isn't that. If he sticks to the script we are OK with it, but he doesn't.

"He says things which are not of importance on that day – that day is a remembrance event. We offered him a compromise four or five times and he was not happy. He just walked out of the meeting."

No decision has yet been taken on who will take over from George, but Mrs Wyld said: "My personal opinion is that I would like to see somebody younger do it this year, because don't forget that we have had the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There are a lot of veterans sitting out in the streets freezing and starving.

"I think George should be man enough to step down at his age and hand over. I think it's the right thing to do."

Mrs Wyld is treasurer and standard bearer of the branch, and served in the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service.

Her husband Philip, who was in the RAF and is branch chairman, picked out the element of George's poem about British and German soldiers murdering each other, and said: "Just because it's in a poem doesn't make it right.

"I find it most offensive and an affront to all of those of my family who fought properly in the Second World War and those who died on D-Day while George was exercising the moral high ground instead of doing his job.

"There is a time to remember the fact that peace is a lot better than war, but it isn't when you are remembering those who paid the price in war.

"They didn't go because they wanted to kill Germans, most of them – they went there because it was their duty."

Wellington mayor, Councillor Phil Morris-Jones, who took the chair for the organisational meeting, was not in earshot of George's contentious comments last year, but said: "Nobody would disagree with a general appeal for peace.

"It's George being George. He tends to be a bit over-enthusiastic and pushed the boundaries too far.

"It's a shame, because George has done a lot of good and is a really popular member of society, but at the end of the day the sort of views he was expressing should have been kept to himself.

"Everybody is entitled to their views, but not when reading the poem on Remembrance Sunday. He said he had done it for 25 years, and one member said that for 24 years you didn't offend anybody, which I thought was rather apt.

"It's a British Legion event and they call the tune, and have every right to decide who they want to put on the podium."

As for George, he now has a Plan B. "I have it in mind to be in the middle of the parade holding up my peace flag," he said.