Remembrance tribute to Glasgow's daring Dambusters officer

“They would have spent a lot of time there.”

Gail and Fiona with their uncle's letters (Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

On Remembrance Sunday, Gail and her family will join other West End residents, veterans and speakers to pay tribute to those who, like her uncle, lost their lives in service to their country.

Flying Officer Richard was a member of the famous 617 Squadron - the Dambusters - who took part in daring raids on German dams during World War Two.

Flying Officer Richard Macfarlane (Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

Of the 133 aircrew that took part, 53 men were killed and three became prisoners of war. On the ground, almost 1300 people died in the resulting flooding.

Richard survived the initial raids in May 1943, but was killed in action just a few months later.

Last year, Gail travelled to the Lincolnshire village of Scampton to attend a touching service marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of 617 Squadron.

“I discovered a book I hadn’t seen before, called The Complete Dambusters, which tells the stories of all the men involved, and I hadn’t realised there were only 133,” she says. “It’s quite something to think our uncle was one of them.

“We have always known his story. The family always talked about it, especially around Remembrance Sunday, but it was only when we were older we realised the enormity of what he had been doing.”

Read more:

Council respond to critics of 'disrespectful' headstone safety sticker

Richard lived on Broomhill Drive with his brothers Hamish and Norman (Gail’s dad, later Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, esteemed peer and patron of the arts.)

“Richard was very talented - he went to Hyndland School, then passed the exams to go to the High School of Glasgow,” says Gail.

“He worked for an accountancy firm while he studied law at Glasgow University, but in 1941 he signed up to the RAF – without telling his parents. His mother was very upset.

“But off he went, and he wrote letters back home to his parents.”

(Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

Richard’s mother kept the precious letters in a shoebox, and when she died, Gail’s dad took them home.

“He could not face reading them, though,” says Gail, sadly. “They are a wonderful read, actually – this was a young man, training in Scotland, in Wales, Canada and Miami, enjoying himself.

“He was playing rugby, cricket – he was young, having a good time.”

In one letter, Richard asks for a bike to be sent to him at RAF Kinloss; in others, he recounts the day to day activities he was enjoying.

“He seems to have taken to the discipline and order of a life in the services very well,” says Gail.

Read more:

Much-loved Arran business revival under Meechan and founding family

The news that Richard was missing in action arrived at his parents’ home by telegram in December 1943.

(Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

“It was devastating for his family,” says Gail. “That was a terrible Christmas. As time went on, I think they told themselves that missing did not mean gone, and there was still hope.

“In February 1944, however, they found out he had been killed.”

Such was the secrecy surrounding the Dambusters, Richard’s family were told not to talk to anyone, especially the press.

Gail adds: “Everything was top secret. They were told not to speak to the newspapers, or reveal anything about what Richard had been doing.

“They didn’t really know anything anyway – everything was confidential. It was only afterwards they found out what it had all been about.”

Gail and Fiona at the Victoria Park war memorial (Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

Gail and her siblings – Fiona, Margie, Hamish and Marguerite - have donated Richard’s dress uniform to the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln.

“The centre also took the letters to digitise them, and they are now being used as a resource by the centre and Lincoln University,” explains Gail.

“We’re glad they are helping people understand the impact of war.”

The Victoria Park Remembrance Sunday service was reinstated seven years ago, when local woman Gillian Mawdsley, who has had a keen interest in war history since her schooldays, approached Friends of Victoria Park to see if they would consider organising an event.

Gail and Fiona with Gillian Mawdsley (Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)

“The memorial in the park is not personalised, so I started researching some of the local men who died in both wars, and I found so many interesting and moving stories,” she explains.

“The scale of loss in Glasgow was quite incredible.”

At this year’s event on Sunday, November 10, which begins at 2pm, speakers will include Gillian and Dr Yevgen Gorash, of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain.

As Gail prepares for Sunday, she looks once more through her uncle’s letters - now back in her home and safely stored in the same shoebox her grandparents kept for so long.

“It’s important to share my uncle’s story, to raise awareness of the war memorial in Victoria Park, and to remind people in Glasgow the impact of the war not just far away where the fighting was happening, but here in the city,” says Gail.

“We never met my uncle Richard, but through his letters, we feel like we know him.”