'Johnny the Pilot'

Down by the War Memorial yesterday, there was a beautiful and dignified - and socially distanced - commemoration of the end of the Second World War in Europe, with prayers led by Rev. Luci Morriss, poems, and the playing of the Last Post.
Meanwhile, down on Bridge Street, someone had brought out their keyboard to play wartime music, with a singer.
I decided it was time for a walk up to Cusop Churchyard. When the Cusop History Group did a talk on the churchyard, earlier in the year, they mentioned 'Johnny the Pilot', a Polish airman who had settled in Cusop after the Second World War, so I went up to find his grave.
During the Second World War, my gran was evacuated pregnant to Blackpool, and ended up settling there for the Duration with her little girl, my mum, at a boarding house in Palatine Road run by Mrs. Colenso, who became her lifelong friend. They had Polish airmen billeted on them, who had been sent to Blackpool for training.
Then, when I was at secondary school, there was a girl in my class whose father had joined the Polish army when he was fourteen and taken part in their doomed cavalry attack on German tanks before he escaped to England - or so she told us!
So I've always known about the part the Poles played in the Second World War on the side of the Allies, and it was nice to find some evidence of it locally.

"In Memory of Waclaw Janek Moszczynski (Johnny)
died 22nd March 1985 Aged 64 years
Served with distinction in Polish Air Force
during campaign for North West Europe 1939 - 1945."