[Photos Stanley Kaye]

VETERANS’ groups and military associations remembered the prisoners of war and those who lost their lives in the Far East at a special service on Saturday.

The commemoration marked 10 years since the New Journal unveiled the memorial in Mornington Crescent funded by donations from our readers.

Retired sergeant major Chris Maynard presided over the ceremony in the scorching heat, attended by more than 75 people, with wreaths laid by Camden mayor Nash Ali, Metropolitan Police inspector Craig Austin, Tony Truett from the Birmingham Far East Prisoners of War Association, and Stanley Kaye from the AJEX Jewish Military Association.

Sgt Major Maynard, who grew up in Camden Town, said: “It has been fantastic to see it grow since we started in 2012. A lot of people don’t realise that the war didn’t end with those celebrations on VE Day after defeating the Nazis, there was still fighting in the far east and people had been prisoners of war for some years when eventu­ally VJ Day did come.”

The New Journal had campaigned for a mean­ingful memorial to those who had been kept as PoWs in countries inclu­ding Burma and Japan.

While there were huge celebrations to mark VE (Victory in Europe) Day on May 7 1945, less was made of VJ Day (Victory in Japan) on August 15 in the same year. Major Michael Kinnear, from the Salvation Army in Chalk Farm, played The Last Post and Reveille.

It was a special day for Tonia Garizio, whose father Tony unveiled the memorial alongside Viscount Slim in September 2012. Tony Garizio had been captured aged 21 during the fall of Singa­pore in 1942, worked on the Burma railway and was eventually sent to the Japanese copper mines.

He had been serving in the Cambridgeshire regiment, but after being released and returning to England after the Japanese surrender, all he received was a rock cake and a letter from George VI.

A decade ago he had got in touch with the New Journal, after his son-in-law Andy had been with him waiting for a doctor’s appointment at the Whittington Hospital, and saw a copy of the New Journal advertising the unveiling.

A week or so later, he was at the ceremony helping to unveil it. He died in 2017, aged 97, but Tonia said it was one of the proudest days of his life. “Without a doubt it was, because he was representing people he had known or fought alongside,” she said.

“I remember that Viscount Slim said to my son that ‘one day you will be wearing your grandfather’s medals’, and that’s how it should be. We will never forget and we must never forget those people who served and fought and died.”

[Stanley Kaye]

Tony Truett, part of the Birmingham Association of Far East Prisoners of War (BAFEPOW) visited from his home in Cam­bridge to pay his respects.

His father, Kenneth, had been in the Suffolk regi­ment and was in Changi prison in Singapore.

The 69-year-old said: “Memorials like this are for the people who fought, the people who did not come back, but also the people who came back and were never the same again.

“We think some­times the lads are up there looking down on us, and they’ll have been looking down on Camden Town on Saturday as well.”

At the multi-faith ceremony Father Pascal Worton from St Mary’s Church in Somers Town blessed the memorial, and Mr Kaye represented Jewish groups.

Joseph Edwards of Edwards Security ensured the smooth running of the event.