Roaring success as bikes join Littlehampton D-Day tribute

The gleaming motorcycles and a wartime armoured vehicle also on display were especially appealing to pupils from River Beach Primary School, arriving for a tea party with the veterans.

And two members of the legion from East Preston and Kingston branch raised their branch standards to show their respect for the men and women, now in their 80s and 90s, who served King and country in those dark days of the Second World War.

Littlehampton’s new mayor, Jill Long, and Dougal Maconachie, the new chairman of Arun District Council, with Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex, Susan Pyper, were among guests attending the afternoon tea for 30 veterans.

During the afternoon, Emily Johnston, whose grandmother Valerie Sharp, a Look & Sea trustee, who helped to organise the event, sang a song, Soldier, she wrote for the occasion.

Music from the wartime era was played by the Dillistones charity fairground organ, parked outside the centre collecting for the legion, as were Look & Sea volunteers. The total of £210 in donations will be divided between Poppy Appeal funds for the Littlehampton and East Preston and Kingston legion branches. Friday’s event was supported by a grant from the River Ward Panel.