Birthday card campaign for modest Suffolk D-Day vet who turns 100 next month
ITV News Anglia's Tanya Mercer reports on the campaign to get cards sent to veteran Jim Grant.
When a young Jim Grant was risking his life as a navy gunner during the D-Day invasion in 1944, the thought of reaching 100 years of age was probably far from his mind.
But Mr Grant will reach that milestone next month - and his family and friends have come up with a plan to make it a special celebration.
At the community hub he attends in Stowmarket they have have started a campaign to get thousands of birthday cards sent to the modest former Royal Marine.
Appeal organiser Michelle Frost, from the Jam Community Pot, said: "Jim is absolutely adorable. When he tells his story it gives you goosebumps.
"We owe Jim and everyone else who's a veteran a lot. It would be amazing to make sure he gets all those cards. He deserves all of them and more."
Mr Grant remembers being on a boat taking out enemy positions and planes off the Normandy coast before the main landing craft went ashore.
He was almost killed when the gun position right next to him took a direct hit from a shell while another time an aircraft came down very close to his crew.
He said: "We were lucky they didn't land on top of us. It landed in the sea a few yards away and blew up. I think everyone who went there was lucky to come back."
He remembers all those who fought and has visited the beaches several times, including this year, as the numbers of veterans dwindle.
Darren White, from the armed forces charity the SSAFA, said he had been on the 75th anniversary commemoration with Mr Grant, when there were 200 veterans.
This year they went again, but there were only 30 for the 80th celebrations.
Lots of local groups and societies have pledged to join in and the appeal has attracted celebrity support too, including from TV personality Rob Rinder.
After just a week cards have already arrived from Yorkshire, Edinburgh and France, with others on the way from the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Mr Grant's daughter Vanessa said she was very proud of her father, and would be amazed by all the attention on 20 December.
"He'll be so touched and chuffed. He doesn't think he's special or anything so it will be lovely to see his little face."
Mr Grant, who is unaware of what’s to come, feels that turning 100 is nothing remarkable.
"It's just the same as when I was 99," he said.
Anyone who wants to send a card to Mr Grant can use the following address: The Jam Community Pot, Baldwins dept store, 29 Ipswich Street, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 1AH.
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