[Boatanchors] very little to do with boatanchors

[CLIVE COLLINS]

Good evening Gentlemen,
 
The subject detail is more or less accurate apart from the fact that what I am about to refer to had a lot to do with thermionic tubes indirectly.
 
 
I make no apology for this text and I am fully aware that certain members might get upset at that statement.
 
Today is 5th June 2004 and sixty years on since D Day in Northern France 1944.
Tonight, all those years ago, a vast army was readying itself for the greatest assault on enemy held territory in the history of warfare.
Too many of those who set sail accross the English Channel were sick with fear and apprehension as to what might happen to them or what they might see or witness.
Many were simply sick because of the weather and the sea conditions but all were without exception the bravest men of modern times.
 
I am British English and proud of it.  I know only too well that the separation between France and England is about 21 miles and that is more or less a wide moat along the south coast of these islands.  A stretch of water that kept us safe while our cousins in the West arranged to come to our aid as they did and stopped the German proposed invasion of this country.
Today we speak many languages in this country but dominantly English for this is England after all.
If things had not gone well in 1944 on the sixth of June, the language spoken could potentially have not been English at this point in time.
The purpose of this text is to offer personal thanks on behalf of myself and my family and friends to those of you who might be reading this who came to our aid when we were on our knees.
It is also a way of recognising that there is still a debt we have to you for our survival and wellbeing and this cannot be repaid in currency.
Those who are reading this and were here on the sixth of June 1944 please accept our thanks.  Those of you who are sons of those who were here, be proud of your fathers and please say to them that they are not forgotten.
Those of you who lost fathers, know that we remember them with gratitude.
 
Thank you Gentlemen for letting me make a few observations.
 
All good wishes,
 
Clive GW3WEQ