Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
My Haven COLIN THACKERY
The 89-year-old Britain’s Got Talent winner in his room at the Royal Hospital Chelsea
1 FAMILY OF FIGHTERS
I always said if my wife Joan went before me, I’d go to live at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. I try to keep fit – I go to the gym regularly – and eat properly. I retired from the Army aged 40 and was given this brass shell case from the last round I’d fired as a gunnery instructor. It’s inscribed with my full service history. The medals beside it are my dad’s and Joan’s dad’s – they were in the Army too.
2 TOP BRASS
My grandfather Tom was a foreman driver for a firm that delivered corn and feed by horse. For the annual London Horse Parade he’d put special tack on his own horse, Nobby, and grandma would make ribbons for his tail.
When he died, the horse brasses were distributed around the family – I got this one with 1930 on it, the year I was born.
3 A SONG FOR JOAN
This is my favourite photo of Joan. I sang Wind Beneath My Wings at my Britain’s Got Talent audition in her memory. She loved the song, and I’d sung it for her at our 50th wedding anniversary party. We were both in an operatic society for years and she had a lovely voice. She’d have been pleased I won but would have said, ‘Don’t let it go to your head’. My friend Bill and I sing at the Chelsea Hospital’s monthly curry nights – he sings country & western, I sing ballads – and I only entered BGT because he dared me to.
4 MERRY DANCE
I met Joan when I was stationed in County Durham. I spotted this pretty brunette across the room at a dance; she was a great dancer and I knew immediately she was the one. We married in 1950 (below) and were together for 66 years.
After she died in 2016, I had the ring on the table made from her ring and my Uncle Jack and Auntie Maisie’s rings, which I’d inherited.
5 IN THE WARS
These are my Korean War medals. I was sent there to fight two weeks after getting married. I got frostbite in my feet, which led to lymphoedema, for which I still take medication. I also lost some hearing after a shell attack. I was then posted to Hong Kong and it was two years before Joan could join me. She’d never been further than Bradford before!
6 HAPPY SNAPS
We were stationed in Germany when these family photos were taken. My daughter Dawn became Brown Owl in the Brownies but the German girls had trouble with that name: she got notes saying, ‘Dear Brown Ale’. My son Peter bought this Casio watch with his first salary, and later gave it to me. I’m so proud of both of them and my four grandchildren, and the BGT prize money means I can help them all out.