De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

Some of you may remember me sharing videos/messages  for Remembrance Day 2015 relating to the 2WW naval veteran, Jim Radford, movingly singing a song, “Shores Of Normandy”, he wrote following his experiences at the D-Day landings.  After the war he became a folk singer and still takes part in folk festivals and concerts now that he is into his late 80s. The gentleman concerned, 90 year-old Jim Radford, has re-recorded his song and there is a campaign to get it to No.1 in the charts for Sunday. It is apparently provisional No.1 as things stand. Funds raised from the sale of the single will go towards the creation of a memorial garden in the fields over-looking Gold Beach, Normandy.  There has been a great deal of media coverage about the song in the last few days. Here are a few links, including the new YouTube video of the song itself: http://bit.ly/2HYAVTc https://www.instagram.com/p/ByHKkyblE-S/?utm_source=ig_embed https://twitter.com/normandymtrust/status/1134400514806996

This song had me in tears the first time I saw the Youtube video of Jim Radford, youngest participant at the D-Day Landings, singing it at the 70th anniversary service commemorating the D-Day landings in July 2014. He wrote the words to the tune of the folk song Raglan Road on his first return to the Normandy beaches fifteen years after the end of the war. I’ve now learned it for it to go in my own repertoire, but it would only be a poor imitation of the wonderful Mr. Radford. Here’s a second version (again BBC) with his voice a little clearer. Shores of Normandy by Jim Radford In the cold grey light of the sixth of June, in the year of forty-four, The Empire Larch sailed out from Poole to join with thousands more. The largest fleet the world had seen, we sailed in close array, And we set our course for Normandy at the dawning of the day. There was not one man in all our crew but knew what lay in store, For we had waited for that day through five long years of war