Thoughtful Tom’s pilgrimage plea
Tom Norman on his Panther
A VINTAGE motorcycle fan is extending a heartfelt offer to Hartlepool Mail readers who lost relatives during the First and Second World Wars.
Tom Norman will visit the Ypres Salient, in Belgium, which forms the resting place of many thousands of different nationalities who died during the WW1 battles around the town of Ieper, or Ypres as it was then known.
The 61-year-old is part of a convoy of 18 Panther Owner Club members who are making the pilgrimage to visit various museums, battle sites and cemeteries in the area around Easter, for the third year in a row.
Tom, who is chairman of the club, said he usually asks fellow riders to bring details of loved ones whose grave they can visit.
“This gives the trip much more purpose than simply sight-seeing,” said Tom, who lives on Hartlepool’s Headland with wife Judith.
Now he is appealing for Mail readers to contact him with details of people they have lost who are buried in the Ypres area so he can place a poppy or cross on their graves.
Tom, who will take his 1938 Panther model 100 bike on the trip, said: “We have said in the past to members of the group ‘have you got a relation who was killed out there? Let’s go and visit the grave’.
“We have also researched a little bit about them. It got me to thinking maybe there’s others out there.
“Maybe we could find some local Hartlepool men out there and go to visit their graves.
“If any readers have got any relatives killed in action on the Ypres Salient and would like a poppy putting on the grave and a photograph taking of it, I would be happy to go and do it.”
The grandfather-of-one, who is operation support manager at Hartlepool Water, added: “I would be delighted to do this and visit as many as I can in the two days we will be there.
“Maybe the relatives could contact the Mail with some history about their lost loved ones.”
Tom, who owns six vintage motorbikes, said he has been interested in the antique bikes “since they weren’t vintage”.
The father-of-six, who originally hails from Campbeltown, in Scotland, was bought his first motorbike – a Honda 50 – by his parents when he was 16.
The group, which has members from as far away as Australia, the USA, Norway and Sweden, will catch a ferry from Hull to Zebrugge on April 5.
They will spend three days in the Ypres area over the Easter weekend and will stay at Talbot House, a former soldiers’ club in nearby Peperinghe, which opened in 1915.
Anyone interested in Tom’s poignant offer can email tom.norman@ntlworld.com
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Weather for Hartlepool
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 7 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
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