Weathervane found in yard unveiled as war memorial

A WEATHERVANE found in a Herefordshire reclamation yard has been declared an official war memorial.

Helen and John Theron, who bought the object more than a decade ago, were surprised to discover it had been made to commemorate seven RAF airmen who died during the Second World War.

The couple did not see the inscription on the weathervane until after they moved to Hereford. It now has a plaque after being unveiled, where 40 relatives of the airmen were invited.

Mrs Theron said: “We’d wanted a weathervane for a long time and we got it from a reclamation yard at the back of a small garden centre in 2009.”

They took the vane down in 2018 when they moved to Herefordshire.

“If we’d come straight here and put it straight on the roof we wouldn’t have noticed it,” Mrs Theron said.

It was left in a box in their new house until someone noticed an inscription. When they looked it up, they discovered that it corresponded to a Lancaster bomber which was lost during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, in what would be one of the last offensives of the war.

After their research, the couple were contacted by the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincolnshire, which remembers crews of RAF Bomber Command who embarked on missions during the Second World War.

They were told that the weathervane would be classified as a war memorial and deserved “a full unveiling with a plaque”.

‘It’s a lovely closure to give all these men – to pay homage to them and thank them for what they’ve done’

Mrs Theron said they had no objections and saw it as a “huge honour”.

They managed to trace the families of the airmen and invited as many as they could to the unveiling at their home, with 40 watching it over the internet.

The couple plan to donate the weathervane to RAF Wyton in their will, where the Lancaster was based.

Mrs Theron said: “It’s a lovely closure to give all these men – to pay homage to them and thank them for what they’ve done.”