255402 Pte. John George "Geordie" Coates British Army Middlesex Regiment from:Seaton Burn, Northumberland Geordie Coates was called up late 1940 or early 1941 after training women to do his work at the gunpowder factory in North London.
He served in France Belgium and Germany. Took part in the Rhine Crossing near the end of the war.
He was a stretcher bearer and was part of the post war occupying unit that liberated Belsen Concentration camp. He was demobbed at the end of 1945.
He would not talk much about the war or what he did. He told me it was such a waste of humanity and how humans could do such terrible things to one another was beyond belief.
I wanted to go into the merchant navy in 1956 and he would not sign the papers. I was steered away from any military service as he called it. I did do an apprenticeship with De Havilland Aircraft. When I was called up for compulsory military training I failed the medical and my chance to get into the Royal Air Force also failed.
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