Lottery millions aid veterans' return

More than 7.1m has been awarded under the second phase of the Big Lottery Fund's Heroes Return programme, allowing 10,624 veterans, widows, spouses and carers to travel to battlefields, cemeteries and other significant sites.

Among the recipients is Malcolm Clerc, 84, from Knutsford, Cheshire, who served with the Royal Navy in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres of the war.

He has been granted 3,700 so he can attend a peace ceremony in Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9 to mark the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the second atomic bomb that ended the war.

Mr Clerc recalled the "unbelievable" devastation he saw when he landed at the Japanese port city a month after the bomb was detonated. He said: "All those years ago I took two photographs of the devastation at Nagasaki and have kept these to show to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with the message that this must never, never happen again."

Another grant has gone to Tom Barker, 85, from Darlington, so he can return with his wife and daughter to Melbourne, Australia, where he was stationed for six months at the end of the war.