John Gaffney

This story and photographs are shared by the Trust with kind permission from Terry Ford and South Shields Local History Group. Garry Hunter in his book “JG-82 MMVII - Name, Rank and Serial Number” tells the story of John Gaffney:

John Gaffney was born in South Shields and lived at 187 South Frederick Street. John
was only 18 when he enlisted. He had been an assistant warehouseman at Hardy’s furniture dealers.

John’s battalion the 10th Durham Light Infantry landed at Gold Beach in Normandy in
June 1944. They fought their way inland but close to Bayeux he is believed to have been
killed by mortar fire. His death was reported in the Shields Gazette and John’s watch was
returned to his family.

South Shields Gazette 09 August 1944

 

The watch was later passed on to Garry Hunter’s father Edward who was a relative of John Gaffney. Just prior to Edward’s death in 2002 he gave his son Garry the precious heirloom. “He told me ‘this is one of things I want you to have’. I only
had a vague idea of who John was and a rather abstract concept of the
war when I was growing up, but later I decided to research the story.”

In 2005 South Shields born Garry Hunter took a journey from the same beach John Gaffney had landed on over 60 years earlier. Garry photographed the route John would have taken, not using a high definition camera but a Holga camera which produces slightly foggy blurred images with red sunlight bursts around the edges to reflect what John would have seen as he landed on the Normandy beach and fought his way through the countryside. The final images reflect that John had been mortally wounded are swirling photos and then a peaceful image staring into the sky.

The final images are of the cemetery in Bayeux where John is buried. Garry said: “It was late when I got there and most of the pillars with the names on were in shadow but the sunlight was falling on the pillar with John Gaffney’s name, which added to the poignancy to the end of both his and my journey"