FOR former Gillingham delicatessen owner Raymond "Roy" Grose, his Second World War service in Normandy with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps was "something of a harrowing adventure".

"Yes, it was an adventure," said Roy, now 80 and chairman of the Canterbury branch of the Normandy Veterans Association, at his home in Hallwood Close, Rainham. "But it was at times, very frightening indeed.

"Death all around us was the most shocking thing. I remember moving up through Falais well after D-Day and seeing the appalling damage and dead soldiers lying all around. That is the sort of thing which really hits you back.

"You had it all in the back of your mind but you moved on up the road and it was gone. You could not afford to dwell upon the horror of it. It was there and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it."

Roy was called up on his 18th birthday in 1943, while working as a Chatham cinema projectionist at the old National Cinema, and was in the Army four days later, doing military training on Leicester Race Course.

He was attached to 1 SAS Airborne, from where he and other RAOC soldiers formed a convoy for Tilbury in June 1944 and on to Gold Beach, Normandy, via a creaking American Liberty ship.

His unit started as part of Operation Overlord and then became involved with Operation Market Garden as it progressed towards Germany.