Latest news with #AlanKennett
BBC News
30-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Sutton Coldfield WW2 RAF veteran reunited with cadet 50 years on
When Neil Newman turned on the television on VE Day, he was shocked to see his former Air Training Cadet (ATC) warrant officer giving permission for the parade to start in and other members of the 495 (Sutton Coldfield) Squadron had no idea that the man, Alan Kennett, who inspired many of them to go into the military as a career, was still Thursday, the men, both from Sutton Coldfield, were reunited for RAF veteran Mr Kennett's 101st birthday at his daughter's house in Lichfield, alongside an RAF cadets band who performed to mark the occasion."We didn't know you were still alive… we wanted to get in touch with you, that's how much of an impact you had on us," Mr Newman told Mr Kennett. "As soon as he was on the TV, the phone didn't stop, it was a WhatsApp group that we were all in," he told the BBC."We just couldn't believe that Alan was starting this parade, it's been 45 years since we last saw him." The men were aged between 12 and 14 when Mr Kennett oversaw them."We had total respect for Alan because as long as we walked the straight path it was okay… I think that's why we're all still in touch now, because he gelled us as a team," said Mr Newman."He came on the camps with us, took us flying, took us shooting."Looking back, Mr Kennett said: "I think the lads all knew that as long as they behaved themselves they were all right, but if they didn't, they were in trouble.""I must have done something right." Mr Kennett was in the RAF during WW2 and worked as a mechanic on on his own contribution, he told the BBC earlier this month that it was a "job" he was doing, whereas those who died deserved the most formally started the military procession of 1,300 members of the armed forces in London as part of events marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
07-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
VE Day 80: Veteran, 100, reflects on war and working on Spitfires
'I'm no hero, they're still out there' 12 minutes ago Share Save Chris Steers BBC Midlands Today Share Save BBC Alan Kennett was a mechanic working on Spitfires "I was in a cinema watching a film and this jeep came blasting through the doors with an officer announcing there was peace in Europe." Alan Kennett, who has been reflecting on events in 1945, formally started the military procession of 1,300 members of the armed forces in London on Monday as part of events marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day. The 100-year-old World War Two veteran from Sutton Coldfield was in the RAF, but did not fly. He was a mechanic working on Spitfires. Mr Kennett said: "In my youth, I worked with a chap who was a motor mechanic and he said 'you want to get in the aircraft side, because that's the future'." He was in a landing craft transporting vehicles to France. "When we went up on deck at Gosport, Portsmouth, all you could see was these little boats bobbing in the water (before D-Day), like you do on the films, all going across to France. "When we arrived in France, we got stuck on the sand banks and had to wait for the tide to go out. We then drove the vehicles off the boat and onto dry land, without getting wet." Mr Kennett formally started the military procession of 1,300 members of the armed forces who marched through London on Monday Not long after the closing of the Falaise Gap in Normandy, when Allied forces surrounded German troops, he met his father, a soldier, in a chance encounter. "One of the lads came over and said 'there's this bloke looking for you' and the next minute my father come in. "He said that 'you blokes (Spitfires), you've made a mess off of Falaise, meaning the town centre'. That wasn't us, though. That was the heavies (bombing planes)." Image supplied The World War Two veteran from Sutton Coldfield was in the RAF VE Day did not bring an end to all of the fighting. The war in the Pacific did not conclude until September 1945. Mr Kennett's war did not end on VE Day either, as he was sent to Norway to ensure German troops surrendered. "Ten days' leave and next thing I was up in Aberdeen, ready to be shipped out to Norway and that was an experience I enjoyed." Reflecting on his own contribution, he felt it was a "job" he was doing, whereas those who died deserved the most recognition, he said. "I suppose when I look at the world today, I think, what was it all for? "I don't consider I'm a hero. They're still out there."
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Britain is not worthy of the sacrifice our soldiers made for us 80 years ago
It was inevitable that VE Day 80 would carry an added freight of poignancy. This was the last big anniversary when the Allies' defeat of Nazi Germany could be described as 'within living memory'. The old boys and girls who can recall active service are now 99, 100 and, in the case of Alan Kennett, who played a key role in Monday's procession, closing on 101. Although they rose splendidly to the occasion ('Marbles all present and correct, Sir!'), none is likely to be here for the 90th so we are at that point where mortal recollection slips into the pages of history. When I was a child, there were men who could still bear shellshocked witness to Passchendaele and Ypres ('Wipers' they called it, in true, cheeky Tommy style, as if trying to befriend the horror). Now, the voices of the Second great war fall silent one by one, until soon none are left. From now on, folks, it's up to you and me. Those of us left behind must not only honour the almost unimaginable sacrifice of the greatest generation (if we can't fill the potholes how would we have fared against Rommel?), but try to keep the flame of the freedom they won for us burning brightly. I don't think we're doing too well so far, do you? In fact, if the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers, sailors and airmen could be brought back for a day I reckon they'd look around the old place and ask, 'What the hell have you done with our country – is this really what we died for?' I wouldn't put it as crudely as the person on X/Twitter who said that the VE Day commemorations were like 'sticking lipstick on the pig of a country which is failing'. But, for the first time in a long line of great national occasions, I did find myself wondering about the lack of substance behind the show. 'Here in Britain we do pomp and pageantry and procession brilliantly,' swooned one royal expert on the BBC. And we do, oh, we do. The 1,300 troops and associated representatives assembled on the central green in Parliament Square were immaculate as ever. (Just before 3am on Saturday, they left Wellington Barracks for a rehearsal; I'm a bit of a bagpipe agnostic, but a massed band playing Scotland the Brave through the dark, empty streets is truly thrilling.) On Monday lunchtime, the matchless mellow, nostalgic warmth of military brass performing wartime favourites ('And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square', 'There'll be bluebirds over...') fell silent as the Garrison Sergeant Major (immensely tall and wide, towering fur busby) paused and saluted before a seated Alan Kennett (flanked by Amy and Olivia, two charming RAF cadets; with those wholesome looks and shiny apple-cheeks they could have served alongside the young Princess Elizabeth). 'Good afternoon, Sir,' said the Sgt Maj. 'Good afternoon.' 'Thank you and your generation for securing our freedom 80 years ago. May I have your permission to start the parade, Sir, please?' 'Carry on!,' our oldest soldier, our centenarian, our centurion from a bygone age, replied and if there was a dry eye in the land, I'd be surprised. 'I'm watching the VE Day parade. Crying,' a friend texted. 'Timothy Spall so moving.' So moving, and very well judged. The actor gave a marvellous rendition of Winston Churchill's Second Ministry of Health Speech on May 8 1945. Physically much slighter than the rotund and orotund Churchill, Spall did not attempt an impersonation of the great man, but he had perfected the attitude and the voice, the cigar-cracked timbre of his imperishable eloquence. 'My dear friends, this is your hour, this is not the victory of a party or any class – it's the victory of the great British nation as a whole. I say that, in the long years to come, not only will the people of this island, but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we have done and they will say, 'Do not despair. Do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be. Unconquered.'' Imagine hearing those words for the first time as the blackout curtains were taken down, and the light streamed in. How on earth did we go from a titan like Churchill with his iron-clad patriotic resolve, his soaring mastery of the English language, to the managerial nonentity ('Let me be very clear') sitting behind the King in the royal box? Some may say it's not fair to compare Sir Keir Starmer to this country's greatest leader, but we are, nonetheless, entitled to wonder how, eight decades later, that victory 'of the great British nation as a whole' has been squandered and betrayed. Starmer's Britain, with its non-crime hate incidents and its summary arrest and imprisonment of 'far-Right' opponents who dare to object to the slaughter of our children and the industrial-scale rape of white, working class girls, not to mention the vile weekly displays of Jew-hatred on its streets, increasingly seems to me to have more in common with the regime that we defeated. Wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, is it really here? That parrot is deceased. Of course it was deeply touching to see the lovely Wales children shyly shake the hand of a veteran and Prince George listening intently to another soldier reminisce. (George and Charlotte's much-missed late great-grandfather, Philip, who gave distinguished service himself, would have been 103 in April; their mother, Kate, proudly wore an RAF insignia as a brooch, while Queen Camilla sported her late war-hero father's regimental badge.) But, please, let's not give ourselves false comfort. Despite the headlines about 'large crowds' and the usual gushing about the ceremonial and the RAF flypast (sadly it was too windy for a Spitfire), this VE Day was notably less well-attended than previous such events. A colleague reported that trains on the Piccadilly line, normally full to overflowing on royal and national occasions, were half-empty. Blame, at least in part, the extraordinary amount of security and the difficulties people had getting through the ironically nicknamed 'peace barriers' which now block London's bridges, park entrances and thoroughfares to deter terrorist attacks. One of the delights we can usually count on are all those bonkers monarchists who camp overnight, their little folding chairs, silly hats and bunting overflowing the pavements; English eccentricity on exuberant display. Not this time. There were no cheering spectators around the Cenotaph (how heartbreakingly beautiful it looked draped in a giant Union flag) or even in Parliament Square as the troops strutted their stuff practically alone. It felt like a church service without a congregation; eerie and a bit melancholy. Back in 1945, who could have foreseen that a future commemoration of the defeat of our enemy abroad would be spoilt by measures to combat an enemy within? (The arrest of an Iranian/Islamist terror cell over the weekend symbolic of all that has gone wrong. How the hell were they even allowed in?) And try explaining to the 25,000 men of the British 50th Division who landed on Gold beach on D-Day that, in the first five months of 2025 alone, 10,000 undocumented foreign males of fighting age came ashore on England's southern coast and were rewarded with bed and board and free gym membership. 'We shall fight them on our beaches, we shall defend our island…' That was Churchill's solemn vow. Except we're not allowed to now. No fighting invaders on beaches; some judge in Strasbourg wouldn't like it. Sorry for letting you down, gentlemen. High security and the terrorist threat aren't the only reason thousands stayed away, I think. As the development economist Paul Collier recently pointed out, the population of London is no greater than it was 60 years ago, but more than half the current population is foreign born. 'Something rather drastic has happened to the indigenous population,' says Prof Collier. 'I cannot think of another capital city where the indigenous population has more than halved in half a century.' The 'more migrants the merrier' narrative, promoted by successive governments to artificially inflate the economy while driving down per-capita prosperity, is 'under huge strain'. As are 'the myriad co-operations that make a society function'. We know that, don't we? It hurts our secret souls, it threatens everything we hold dear. It's the reason one wit on X could quip of London: 'Not many Brits live there any more.' The establishment, including King Charles, are enthusiasts for multiculturalism which, unfortunately if not unforeseeably, appears to have the side-effects of eroding support for the monarchy and for the nation. Don't get me wrong. Some immigrants, and the children of immigrants, are among our most patriotic people. Look at that Jamaican-British airman, now in his late-nineties, who told the BBC with such pride about his wartime service and the deep bond he enjoyed with his band of brothers. (Relish too the fact that US servicemen who came over here to help had to be told that Britons did not regard black men as inferior and our girls would dance with whom they pleased.) And yet it's a fact that millions who now live here have no affiliation to the UK, no ties of blood or sentiment, no clue about bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover or bagpipes or Scotland the Brave. They do not smile, as the rest of us smiled, when they see Princess Anne in her brown uniform with the cinched waist and jaunty cap, so like the one worn by her mother, our beloved late Queen, when she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a driver and mechanic. (Anne, the best Queen we never had. Anne, the hardest working member of the Royal family who, despite a kidnap attempt, has the same level of security as that whingebucket Prince Harry.) Nor do their throats constrict when they listen to the swelling chords of The Dam Busters March or hear the thunderous thrum of a Lancaster bomber, with its four Merlin engines, leading the flypast over Buckingham Palace. It almost seems to be hardwired into the British psyche, that sound. As if we know instinctively those magnificent men in their flying machines kept us safe. And how did we repay them, eh? By today's Royal Air Force discriminating against white male applicants (until they realised the diversity hires were struggling to meet the standard necessary to fly the planes). By the Prime Minister warmongering to distract from his own domestic unpopularity and threatening 'boots on the ground' in Ukraine when our armed forces are shockingly depleted and, despite receiving a 6 per cent pay rise, thousands are quitting, presumably because they no longer want to fight for a country that gives benefits to its enemies and treats its own people with contempt. How long would you give them against the Russians, what was once one of the greatest armies the world had ever seen? A month? A fortnight before they were obliterated? Some experts say a week. It would have been far easier to write a piece this week that went along with the nostalgic delusion, which raved uncritically about 'how well we do these things' instead of pointing out the Potemkin pageant. But I love my country, and I will not lie to her. She deserves the truth. The greatest generation did not make sacrifices barely comprehensible to the modern mind to see Britain reduced to a husk of her former self. They who paid the ultimate price did not expect their homeland to be invaded and altered beyond recognition, their traditions trashed, their culture eroded, while complacent and complicit governments did nothing. 'There'll always be an England,' they sang. Well, it turns out they were wrong; the liberal, globalist, no-borders class had other ideas. As the victors over Nazi Germany pass from this world into the history books, from now on, folks, it's up to you and me to fight for the freedom they won for us, for the amazing country they saved. It may feel too daunting right now. With so much going wrong, you bet it does. But our young people are good, as their great-grandparents were good, and, like dear George and Charlotte, they need inspiration and instruction from history. Britons are lucky. This happy breed, we will always have Churchill's words, a slender handrail to hold onto in the darkest hour: 'In the long years to come, not only will the people of this island, but of the world … look back to what we have done and they will say, 'Do not despair. Do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be.'' Unconquered. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
06-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Starmer's Britain is not worthy of the sacrifice our soldiers made 80 years ago
It was inevitable that VE Day 80 would carry an added freight of poignancy. This was the last big anniversary when the Allies' defeat of Nazi Germany could be described as 'within living memory'. The old boys and girls who can recall active service are now 99, 100 and, in the case of Alan Kennett, who played a key role in Monday's procession, closing on 101. Although they rose splendidly to the occasion ('Marbles all present and correct, Sir!'), none is likely to be here for the 90th so we are at that point where mortal recollection slips into the pages of history. When I was a child, there were men who could still bear shellshocked witness to Passchendaele and Ypres ('Wipers' they called it, in true, cheeky Tommy style, as if trying to befriend the horror). Now, the voices of the Second great war fall silent one by one, until soon none are left. From now on, folks, it's up to you and me. Those of us left behind must not only honour the almost unimaginable sacrifice of the greatest generation (if we can't fill the potholes how would we have fared against Rommel?), but try to keep the flame of the freedom they won for us burning brightly. I don't think we're doing too well so far, do you? In fact, if the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers, sailors and airmen could be brought back for a day I reckon they'd look around the old place and ask, 'What the hell have you done with our country – is this really what we died for?' I wouldn't put it as crudely as the person on X/Twitter who said that the VE Day commemorations were like 'sticking lipstick on the pig of a country which is failing'. But, for the first time in a long line of great national occasions, I did find myself wondering about the lack of substance behind the show. 'Here in Britain we do pomp and pageantry and procession brilliantly,' swooned one royal expert on the BBC. And we do, oh, we do. The 1,300 troops and associated representatives assembled on the central green in Parliament Square were immaculate as ever. (Just before 3am on Saturday, they left Wellington Barracks for a rehearsal; I'm a bit of a bagpipe agnostic, but a massed band playing Scotland the Brave through the dark, empty streets is truly thrilling.) On Monday lunchtime, the matchless mellow, nostalgic warmth of military brass performing wartime favourites ('And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square', 'There'll be bluebirds over...') fell silent as the Garrison Sergeant Major (immensely tall and wide, towering fur busby) paused and saluted before a seated Alan Kennett (flanked by Amy and Olivia, two charming RAF cadets; with those wholesome looks and shiny apple-cheeks they could have served alongside the young Princess Elizabeth). 'Good afternoon, Sir,' said the Sgt Maj. 'Good afternoon.' 'Thank you and your generation for securing our freedom 80 years ago. May I have your permission to start the parade, Sir, please?' 'Carry on!,' our oldest soldier, our centenarian, our centurion from a bygone age, replied and if there was a dry eye in the land, I'd be surprised. 'I'm watching the VE Day parade. Crying,' a friend texted. 'Timothy Spall so moving.' So moving, and very well judged. The actor gave a marvellous rendition of Winston Churchill's Second Ministry of Health Speech on May 8 1945. Physically much slighter than the rotund and orotund Churchill, Spall did not attempt an impersonation of the great man, but he had perfected the attitude and the voice, the cigar-cracked timbre of his imperishable eloquence. 'My dear friends, this is your hour, this is not the victory of a party or any class – it's the victory of the great British nation as a whole. I say that, in the long years to come, not only will the people of this island, but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we have done and they will say, 'Do not despair. Do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be. Unconquered.'' Imagine hearing those words for the first time as the blackout curtains were taken down, and the light streamed in. How on earth did we go from a titan like Churchill with his iron-clad patriotic resolve, his soaring mastery of the English language, to the managerial nonentity ('Let me be very clear') sitting behind the King in the royal box? Some may say it's not fair to compare Sir Keir Starmer to this country's greatest leader, but we are, nonetheless, entitled to wonder how, eight decades later, that victory 'of the great British nation as a whole' has been squandered and betrayed. Starmer's Britain, with its non-crime hate incidents and its summary arrest and imprisonment of ' far-Right ' opponents who dare to object to the slaughter of our children and the industrial-scale rape of white, working class girls, not to mention the vile weekly displays of Jew-hatred on its streets, increasingly seems to me to have more in common with the regime that we defeated. Wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, is it really here? That parrot is deceased. Of course it was deeply touching to see the lovely Wales children shyly shake the hand of a veteran and Prince George listening intently to another soldier reminisce. (George and Charlotte's much-missed late great-grandfather, Philip, who gave distinguished service himself, would have been 103 in April; their mother, Kate, proudly wore an RAF insignia as a brooch, while Queen Camilla sported her late war-hero father's regimental badge.) But, please, let's not give ourselves false comfort. Despite the headlines about 'large crowds' and the usual gushing about the ceremonial and the RAF flypast (sadly it was too windy for a Spitfire), this VE Day was notably less well-attended than previous such events. A colleague reported that trains on the Piccadilly line, normally full to overflowing on royal and national occasions, were half-empty. Blame, at least in part, the extraordinary amount of security and the difficulties people had getting through the ironically nicknamed 'peace barriers' which now block London's bridges, park entrances and thoroughfares to deter terrorist attacks. One of the delights we can usually count on are all those bonkers monarchists who camp overnight, their little folding chairs, silly hats and bunting overflowing the pavements; English eccentricity on exuberant display. Not this time. There were no cheering spectators around the Cenotaph (how heartbreakingly beautiful it looked draped in a giant Union flag) or even in Parliament Square as the troops strutted their stuff practically alone. It felt like a church service without a congregation; eerie and a bit melancholy. Back in 1945, who could have foreseen that a future commemoration of the defeat of our enemy abroad would be spoilt by measures to combat an enemy within? (The arrest of an Iranian/Islamist terror cell over the weekend symbolic of all that has gone wrong. How the hell were they even allowed in?) And try explaining to the 25,000 men of the British 50 th Division who landed on Gold beach on D-Day that, in the first five months of 2025 alone, 10,000 undocumented foreign males of fighting age came ashore on England's southern coast and were rewarded with bed and board and free gym membership. 'We shall fight them on our beaches, we shall defend our island…' That was Churchill's solemn vow. Except we're not allowed to now. No fighting invaders on beaches; some judge in Strasbourg wouldn't like it. Sorry for letting you down, gentlemen. High security and the terrorist threat aren't the only reason thousands stayed away, I think. As the development economist Paul Collier recently pointed out, the population of London is no greater than it was 60 years ago, but more than half the current population is foreign born. 'Something rather drastic has happened to the indigenous population,' says Prof Collier. 'I cannot think of another capital city where the indigenous population has more than halved in half a century.' The 'more migrants the merrier' narrative, promoted by successive governments to artificially inflate the economy while driving down per-capita prosperity, is 'under huge strain'. As are 'the myriad co-operations that make a society function'. We know that, don't we? It hurts our secret souls, it threatens everything we hold dear. It's the reason one wit on X could quip of London: 'Not many Brits live there any more.' The establishment, including King Charles, are enthusiasts for multiculturalism which, unfortunately if not unforeseeably, appears to have the side-effects of eroding support for the monarchy and for the nation. Don't get me wrong. Some immigrants, and the children of immigrants, are among our most patriotic people. Look at that Jamaican-British airman, now in his late-nineties, who told the BBC with such pride about his wartime service and the deep bond he enjoyed with his band of brothers. (Relish too the fact that US servicemen who came over here to help had to be told that Britons did not regard black men as inferior and our girls would dance with whom they pleased.) And yet it's a fact that millions who now live here have no affiliation to the UK, no ties of blood or sentiment, no clue about bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover or bagpipes or Scotland the Brave. They do not smile, as the rest of us smiled, when they see Princess Anne in her brown uniform with the cinched waist and jaunty cap, so like the one worn by her mother, our beloved late Queen, when she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a driver and mechanic. (Anne, the best Queen we never had. Anne, the hardest working member of the Royal family who, despite a kidnap attempt, has the same level of security as that whingebucket Prince Harry.) Nor do their throats constrict when they listen to the swelling chords of The Dam Busters March or hear the thunderous thrum of a Lancaster bomber, with its four Merlin engines, leading the flypast over Buckingham Palace. It almost seems to be hardwired into the British psyche, that sound. As if we know instinctively those magnificent men in their flying machines kept us safe. And how did we repay them, eh? By today's Royal Air Force discriminating against white male applicants (until they realised the diversity hires were struggling to meet the standard necessary to fly the planes). By the Prime Minister warmongering to distract from his own domestic unpopularity and threatening 'boots on the ground' in Ukraine when our armed forces are shockingly depleted and, despite receiving a 6 per cent pay rise, thousands are quitting, presumably because they no longer want to fight for a country that gives benefits to its enemies and treats its own people with contempt. How long would you give them against the Russians, what was once one of the greatest armies the world had ever seen? A month? A fortnight before they were obliterated? Some experts say a week. It would have been far easier to write a piece this week that went along with the nostalgic delusion, which raved uncritically about 'how well we do these things' instead of pointing out the Potemkin pageant. But I love my country, and I will not lie to her. She deserves the truth. The greatest generation did not make sacrifices barely comprehensible to the modern mind to see Britain reduced to a husk of her former self. They who paid the ultimate price did not expect their homeland to be invaded and altered beyond recognition, their traditions trashed, their culture eroded, while complacent and complicit governments did nothing. 'There'll always be an England,' they sang. Well, it turns out they were wrong; the liberal, globalist, no-borders class had other ideas. As the victors over Nazi Germany pass from this world into the history books, from now on, folks, it's up to you and me to fight for the freedom they won for us, for the amazing country they saved. It may feel too daunting right now. With so much going wrong, you bet it does. But our young people are good, as their great-grandparents were good, and, like dear George and Charlotte, they need inspiration and instruction from history. Britons are lucky. This happy breed, we will always have Churchill's words, a slender handrail to hold onto in the darkest hour: 'In the long years to come, not only will the people of this island, but of the world … look back to what we have done and they will say, 'Do not despair. Do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be.''
Al Jazeera
06-05-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
UK's victory day parade draws thousands to mark 80 years since WWII
The United Kingdom has marked the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, honouring the men and women who fought during World War II. The events on Monday featured a procession by members of the British armed forces, accompanied by troops from Ukraine and the UK's NATO allies. Alan Kennett, 100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran who landed in northern France on D-Day, accepted the salute from Garrison Sergeant Major Andrew Stokes in front of an audience that included King Charles III, signalling the parade to begin. The parade followed a route from the Houses of Parliament, through Trafalgar Square and down the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
