WWII RAF hero remembered and more memories of Miss Helen

One of two photos showed Pettigo blacksmith David Elliott dancing with Helen during her visit to his forge in the early 1980s.

The other picture was from Romper Room, but I’m afraid, as a number of folk quickly highlighted in Roamer’s mailbox, it wasn’t Miss Helen!

“I didn’t spot the pic error,” one e-mailer admitted, but it was his wife who “thought it was ‘Miss Adrienne’ and so it seems to be - Adrienne McGuill/Catherwood, Helen’s predecessor.”

“By the way,” agreed Belfast reader Ian Elliott in his e-mail “I think one of your photos may actually be Helen’s Romper Room predecessor, Miss Adrienne.”

Before ending with a very funny anecdote, Ian’s note highlighted Helen’s “wonderful TV contributions. The warm tributes to Miss Helen reminded me how Romper Room influenced so many lives, including students like myself even by the time we were at Queens in the 1970s. In the multi-storey library on University Square I have fond memories of some learned graffiti which had appeared, saying:

To be is to do (Socrates)

To do is to be (Jean-Paul Sartre)

Do be a do bee (Miss Helen)

Do be do be do (Frank Sinatra)”

Chris emailed “Helen’s death is very sad, but those who were fortunate to know her have many happy memories… remembering how adept and engaging Helen was as a presenter/interviewer…a wonderful woman with a wondrous talent across so many fields.”

Like Ian Elliott, Chris ended his email with an amusing story - “Around 1980 there was a big media event at Queen’s University, in the splendour of the Great Hall, and Miss Helen was there. The time came for questions, about the future of television in Ulster. From the Chair - ‘Are there any questions from the audience?’ From Miss Helen - ‘Yes, who shot JR?’”

I’ve another apology to make today, about Roamer’s backlog of readers’ emails.

Most of them I answer, but I’ve recently discovered that there are a few letters that were posted to the News Letter during the pandemic which I haven’t received.

This is due to ‘working from home’ restrictions, and I fear I haven’t been to the paper’s Belfast or Portadown address for ages.

But the letters have now been forwarded and I’ll answer them as soon as possible.

Finally today, another sad death, of former Flight Lieutenant Bill Eames BEM who piloted one of the planes towing gliders packed with soldiers into Normandy on the morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Later that year in September, during Operation Market Garden, Flight Lieutenant Eames was very badly injured dropping more glider-borne troops in Arnhem.

Despite his injuries he brought his shot-up bomber and crew safely back to base where he collapsed and needed lengthy hospitalisation, though he returned to battle just six months later.

Bill often shared his heart-stopping WWII stories on this page, always modestly and rarely mentioning the shrapnel that remained in his arm, still giving him pain.

Born in Enniskillen in 1923, Bill returned to his first school last year - Enniskillen Model School - where a special commemorative painting by artist David Briggs was unveiled and presented to the school.

The painting showed Bill’s plane towing a glider, under attack, and after the presentation he shared a few of his memories of D-Day with Roamer.

“I was footloose and fancy free at the time and not particularly frightened, but we did indeed realise the significance of what we were doing that day. We’d been training for it in secret for a year.

“We flew out from Harwell, Oxford, just before midnight. I remember having a bacon and egg supper beforehand and enjoying it!

“We were flying in the dark to the eastern side of the front to deliver troops from the Sixth Division to the Pegasus Bridge, which they secured. There were dozens of us tugging the gliders, they were heavy, so it took us five hours.

“It was a very unpleasant night, quite stormy for us towing the gliders. It was an essential job to land them in the right position; if we hadn’t, they would have had to do a forced landing.

“It became dangerous once we approached the French coast - as soon as the Germans spotted us, the sky lit up like fireworks with anti-aircraft fire. It was all I could see for a while; there were thousands of ships below us, but I couldn’t see any of them.

“There was always the fear of being shot down, but to think of that was too depressing. I tried to stay positive. Was I scared? Well, I did get a bit cross with all that anti-aircraft fire trying to take me down - but they missed! We were under attack for 20 minutes or so, but no, we didn’t panic.

“We were delighted to get there and back in one piece, though. We were delighted to have done our bit well and to hear the good news of the victory, but the sea landings must have been dreadful. I was back in bed by the time the landings took place.”