My teacher - the D-day hero
In my mind’s eye, I can still see Pat Moore – Mr Moore as I called him – standing at the front of the classroom – calm, reserved, but authoritative.
He would have been around 65 then and winding down from his teaching career. He was semi-retired, in fact, and would pop back to help out whenever my school – Bishop Ward catholic secondary in Dagenham – was a bit short. So he would take classes for a variety of different subjects – history and technology mainly – and get on with the job perfectly capably.
Someone – I think it was another teacher - once told me that Mr Moore had been ‘right in amongst it’ during the second world war; but as an 11-year-old I had no interest in the private lives of my teachers and didn’t enquire further. And, for his part, Mr Moore never volunteered any information about his past. He was, after all, part of that ‘stiff upper lip’ generation and, in any case, teachers back then just didn’t talk about their lives outside the classroom or reveal their innermost thoughts or feelings to students (a far cry from today).
I thought about Mr Moore occasionally – in the way one generally thinks about old teachers – in the years after I left school. And then, in 2022, I met up with another former teacher for a drink. I asked if Mr Moore was still with us. He wasn’t. He had died in 2019, aged 98. This other teacher went on to say, ‘You know Pat was a war hero, don’t you?’ I replied that I knew he’d been on the frontline somewhere, because someone had once told me so. ‘Google him when you get home,’ said this other teacher.
Pat Moore was indeed a war hero. He served with the Royal Engineers. Landing on Juno beach on D-day, he had been assigned the exceedingly dangerous task of disarming mines. Did a hell of a job, apparently, and saved countless lives. He was awarded the prestigious Légion d'Honneur – France’s highest decoration – and a school in Normandy was named after him.
I had no idea about any of this, because he never mentioned it. I suspect that many of my old classmates were - probably still are - similarly unaware.
I think today, the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, of Pat Moore, a quiet and unassuming hero. And I think of all those who risked - and, in many cases, gave - their lives to preserve our freedoms.
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Thank you for sharing.
As a child in the 1970s my neighbour across the road was a very elderly chap named Mr Hills (no first name terms with adults in those days!) He was a lovely, straight up dignified chap heading for his eighties. Every day I’d see him polishing his doorstep - a big brass thing - as I went to school. I knew he had been in World War One but that was it.
He never talked about the war and it wasn’t until many years later I discovered he had been a fighter Ace in the Great War. If it had been me I’d’ told all and sundry but that wasn’t their way.
As you say, an amazing generation whose like we shall sadly ne’er see again.
Thank you again.
I recall a teacher from my early teens. Rather elderly and semi retired but good natured and patient with us immature fools. He was rescued from the North Sea when his ship, HMS Nottingham was torpedoed by a u boat in 1916. Never talked about it or anything else about his service. It got mentioned by the headmaster at his retirement presentation. I often wish I'd asked him and others of his era about what they lived through and experienced.