THOMAS Thompson remembers VE-Day – he got a day off from school!

Thomas was from Carlisle but was at boarding school in St Bees, while his father, Michael, served with the army in Germany.

It was a link with the army that runs through his family. Thomas later did his National Service, and earlier this year published a book – 'Fifty First Field: The Story of the 51st Field Regiment, Royal Artillery (Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry), in the Second World War'.

Looking back to VE Day, Thomas, who now lives in Thursby, near Carlisle, recalls: “I was at school, at St Bees at the time. We got a day off!

“My father was serving in Germany at the time. He was with the Royal Engineers. He owned a contracting company in Carlisle – Michael Thompson Ltd. He and another engineer from Dumfriesshire raised a company of engineers before the war.

“He went across to Normandy on VE-Day plus six, and then right across Europe after that.

“I can remember him coming home after the war. I was away at school when he was demobbed, and I remember he came down to St Bees on a Sunday. He had a big SS Jaguar car which had been locked up in the garage all through the war.

“He came down to St Bees to take me for a ride. We went down to the shore at St Bees. The tide was out. He decided to take the car down onto the beach at St Bees.

“It got to the time to go because the tide was turning, but he got stuck trying to get off the beach. It was getting late and I thought I would be late for evening chapel.

“Fortunately there was a man who owned a sand and gravel business. He had a horse and cart and we managed to get hold of him. He brought his horse down and pulled the car out onto dry land. I managed to get back to school in time for chapel!”

Thomas also remembers VJ Day on August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered.

“I remember VJ Day came later on. That was in the school holidays. I was cycling around youth hostels in Dumfriesshire and Northumberland at the time. That night I spent the night in a youth hostel in Bellingham,” he said.

Thomas joined the army when he was called up for national service in 1949 after leaving school. He served in the Royal Artillery, followed by three years in the Territorial Army.

He was the last commanding officer of the 51st unit as well as the last commanding officer of the 4th Territorial Battalion Border Regiment. The book follows the regiment as they travelled from the freezing Arctic to the jungles of Burma between 1939-1945.

“I had wanted to find out more about the regiment. It took me a long time to get round to it after I had retired, it took a long time to research it, and write it, and an even longer time to find a publisher!” he said.

After completing his national service, Thomas studied law at university, and was called to the Bar, but spent his life working as a civil engineer building roads, bridges and sewage works around Cumberland.