{"id":22372,"date":"2019-04-14T22:10:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T21:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=22372"},"modified":"2019-04-14T22:10:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T21:10:55","slug":"the-prime-minister-mr-winston-churchill-and-dunkirk-evacuees-at-abingdon-lock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=22372","title":{"rendered":"The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill) and Dunkirk Evacuees at Abingdon Lock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041411.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nThe Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill), had a magnificent reception today when he paid a visit to Abingdon Lock to help rally members of the local Home Guard. He made a very stirring speech.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041401.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nMr Churchill spoke with members of the Home Guard and demonstrated the famous V for Victory sign.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041403.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nAbingdon lock keeper Mr Richard Hawkins told me <i>it&#8217;s all in a day&#8217;s work &#8230; welcoming the Prime Minister and some soldiers back from Flanders.<\/i><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041407.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nA large crowd of Abingdon people had gathered to see Mr Churchill and welcome back the heroes of Dunkirk.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041408.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nThey were bloodied but not beaten.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041406.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nMay Blossom, the sweetheart of the Home Guard, sang some favourites.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041402.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nMembers of the&nbsp;UTP (Upper Thames Patrol) Local Defence Volunteers were also there guarding the River. Mr Churchill did say, in my hearing, that he considers the name UTP Local Defence Volunteers <em>not plain English<\/em>, and so plans to rename them the UTP Home Guard.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041404.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nLocal people spoke to soldiers evacuated from Flanders who said they were bombed almost the whole way over the channel and it was a miracle so many of them got back alive. It was thanks to a fleet of small boats.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag19\/19041412.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Lock\" \/><br \/>\nCongratulations to&nbsp;Mr Richard Hawkins (the lock keeper), and assistant keeper Frank Jordan, and to other volunteers, who made this a day to remember. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill), had a magnificent reception today when he paid a visit to Abingdon Lock to help rally members of the local Home Guard. He made a very stirring speech. Mr Churchill spoke with members of the Home Guard and demonstrated the famous V for Victory sign. Abingdon lock keeper Mr [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}