Forgotton war dead memorial campaign grows as soldier's daughter vows not to leave anyone out (From Times Series)

Forgotton war dead memorial campaign grows as soldier's daughter vows not to leave anyone out

8:11pm Monday 9th November 2009

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A WOMAN who battled to have her killed soldier father listed on a war memorial for 15 years has spoken of her determination to do the same for others.

Catherine Loveday said it was wonderful that a campaign to raise the money needed to add the names of the “forgotten” servicemen killed from East Barnet Village in the Second World War to the village's war memorial, created in 1920, was near its target.

Generous East Barnet Villagers have so far raised £1,900 of the £2,500 needed.

There is enough money to list the 30 names currently only listed on a window at St Mary's the Virgin Church in Church Hill Road.

An appeal to find those left off completely has added a further 14 to the list.

Mrs Loveday, who has painstakingly checked the war records of those to be added, said: “It's wonderful to feel that I could help achieve this. It's my lifetime's ambition that these names should be put where they belong.”

But the campaign is far from over and the numbers keep growing.

Mrs Loveday, 71 and of Lullington Garth, Woodside Park, said that she had been overwhelmed with calls from people whose relatives had not been listed but found that many of them were from New Barnet down the road.

After the East Barnet memorial is complete, she wants to raise another £5,000 to do the same there.

She said: “It's not fair - they should be there. They made the ultimate sacrifice for us. Every day people are ringing me up, saying where's my father's name, where's my brother's, it's very moving.

“It's a lot of money to raise but people they talk to me for hours in tears, they're so delighted that this is happening.”

The only Second World War soldier who is listed on the East Barnet memorial is Mrs Loveday's father, Stanley Frederick Chapman, who was killed aged 27 in the Atlantic.

She was only a child of two when he died and said that despite her age said she could clearly remember her mother receiving the telegram, because it was so traumatic.

“I used to come to the war memorial and I thought my Dad will come back because he wasn't written down there. I had this dream for a long time because I really wanted it to be true.”

The tragedy was very nearly a calamity for her, her five-year-old sister and their mother, then 30.

Mr Chapman's army pension was only 55p per week, and their rent was more than £1.

The authorities told her grief-stricken mother, who had recently lost her brother and also when she was seven her father too in battle, that if she gave her girls up to become war orphans they would be looked after.

Luckily her father had been a master butcher and manager of the Sainsbury's shop in Colindale and the founder of Sainsbury's John Sainsbury heard her story and helped out the family.

Mrs Loveday battled for a decade and a half to persuade Barnet Council to add his name, which she achieved in 1995.

“It was wonderful just to have his name there, I invited the whole family to come down from across Britain.

“It was just so sad that my mother did not live long enough to see it.”

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