“It was amazing to be there… I didn’t see any other 82-year-old cyclists,” said Norman Bright — a war veteran who survived leukaemia and has a pacemaker — of his 45-mile cycle ride through Normandy to pay tribute to the Allied soldiers who fought on D-Day.
Though Mr Bright served in the RAF and fought in Malaysia in the 1950s, his decision to make the round-trip from the harbour where he docked to Caen via Pegasus Bridge, which Allied soldiers captured on D-Day, was partly a response to his own memories of the war and the Holocaust.
He was nine in 1945 and remembers having “nightmares for a year” when he learned what had happened.
“We didn’t really know what was going on [during the war]. We would listen to the radio and all I knew was that we were winning,” he said.
“It was when I found out about the concentration camps and what was happening to people that I knew what people were fighting for.”
Mr Bright returned from his 45-mile cycle in Normandy earlier this month.
The 82-year-old, who lives in Ajex House in East Bank, in the heart of the Strictly Orthodox Stamford Hill community, said of his trip:
“I cycled from the harbour to Caen to pay respect. I just felt I had to. At the age of 82 with a heavy rucksack on, it was not that easy, but what else could I do?”
The keen racing cyclist, who participated in the World Championships in Belgium three times and the European Championships once, says he was “amazed” to cycle to Pegasus Bridge, which Allied soldiers captured on D-Day, denying enemy troops a way to counter-attack as Allied forces pressed forward from the beaches.
He added: “You may think France is hostile to Great Britain but not in Normandy. Even after 75 years they remember with gratitude the first landings and there were flags flying everywhere. It was wonderful.”
Mr Bright, who is a member of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (Ajex), said his RAF service in Malaysia was a “horrible war because you didn’t know who was the enemy. Not many people know or talk about what happened.”
He added: “Every November we have the Ajex parade to pay respect to our soldiers and I never see people from Stamford Hill there and it makes me sad. Each year the numbers of people that go seem to go less and less.”
The cyclist said he thought it was important that others his age stay active.
“I love it and it keeps me going. I have a few things here and there but it helps to stay active and it keeps your brain going.”
He says he is “disappointed” few people make the effort to visit Normandy.
“I think more people should go there and see for themselves,” he says,
“It is important to say thank you to the generation that was there because without them we wouldn’t be alive. I get quite angry about it.
“The Americans that fought for us didn’t even know where they were. It is about time we thank them.”
