IN this year when so many people are remembering the start of The First WorldWar and the anniversary of the Normandy invasion, may I remind folks of another anniversary?

It is 60 years since British and American troops vacated Trieste and handed the city over to the Italians. Many people do not realise that Allied soldiers occupied the city of Trieste at the top of the Adriatic Sea from the end of the Second Word War in 1945 until November 1954. Although this was a pleasant place to be stationed, it had to be remembered that it was at the southern end of the “Iron Curtain” and a potential flash point between the West and the East across the Yugoslav border.

I belong to the BETFOR Association (British Element Trieste Force) which exists for the comradeship of ex-Trieste veterans. It is a very relaxed organisation (it has to be – we are all over 80!). The subscription is £10 a year. We keep in touch by a quarterly journal and annual reunions at different places in the UK, plus occasional trips back to the city of our youth.

If any of your readers are BETFOR veterans and are interested in joining us, please contact me and I will introduce them for membership.

I also arrange local meetings, held every three months, the next being at noon, Thursday, September 11 at The Encore public house, Commercial Road, Southampton. Anyone interested would be welcome to join us for a chat and a pub lunch. My telephone number is 01794 514686.

JOHN BARRON, Romsey.